Search results

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the lubricity of palm biodiesel (PB)–diesel fuel with plastic pyrolysis oil (PPO) and waste cooking biodiesel (WCB).

Three quaternary fuels were prepared by mechanical stirring. B10 (10% PB in diesel) fuel was blended with 5%, 10% and 15% of both PPO and WCB. The results were compared to B30 (30% PB in diesel) and B10. The lubricity of fuel samples was determined using high-frequency reciprocating rig in accordance with ASTM D6079. The tribological behavior of all fuels was assessed by using scanning electron microscopy on worn steel plates to determine wear scar diameter (WSD) and surface morphology. The reported WSD is the average of the major and minor axis of the wear scar.

The addition of PPO and WCB to B10 had improved its lubricity while lowering wear and friction coefficients. Among the quaternary fuels, B40 showed the greatest reduction in coefficient of friction and WSD, with 7.63% and 44.5%, respectively, when compared to B10. When compared to B30a, the quaternary fuel mixes (B40, B30b and B20) exhibited significant reduction in WSD by 49.66%, 42.84% and 40.24%, respectively. Among the quaternary fuels, B40 exhibited the best overall lubricating performance, which was supported by surface morphology analysis. The evaluation of B40 indicated a reduced adhesive wear and tribo-oxidation, as well as a smoother metal surface, as compared to B20 and B30b.

Incorporation of PPO and WCB in PB–diesel blend as a quaternary fuel blend in diesel engines has not been reported. Only a few researchers looked into the impact of PPO and WCB on the lubricity of the fuel.

Drawing on knowledge-based view, social exchange theory and leader-member exchange, this study examines how exploitative leadership (EL) influences knowledge management (KM), its processes, and further investigates the moderating role of organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB) on the relationship between EL and KM.

Using a quantitative approach, survey data were collected from 356 faculty members in Iraqi public universities, and the direct and moderating relationships were assessed through Hierarchical regression by PROCESS v.3.3 macros in SPSS.

The study found a significant negative impact of EL on KM, including its processes, especially on knowledge utilisation. The assessment also revealed that OCB has a significant moderating impact on EL, particularly its effect on knowledge creation.

The empirical insights of the study are valuable and precious for policymakers, managers and academics in education sectors of developing countries, to enrich their managerial and scientific performance through addressing EL behaviours while considering the moderating effect of OCB.

The relevance of the study stems from the scarcity of research on EL, while studies on the negative behaviours of leaders as a predictor of KM process failures are significantly limited. Additionally, studies on the moderating impact of OCB on the linkage between EL and KM processes remain limited. This study is one of the earliest studies that investigate these inter-relationships amongst EL, OCB and KM processes.

The purpose of this exploratory case study was to investigate the role of School Leaders (SLs) in building Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) in schools, as well as to expand a literature-driven PLC model within the Pakistani context.

The study involved the purposive selection of two schools affiliated with a university. The sample comprised one school leader, one academic coordinator and five teachers from each school, altogether 14 participants. The participants shared similar demographic characteristics. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data, which were analysed thematically.

The findings of the study revealed that both schools have created PLCs to some extent and that school goals and culture were contributing factors in building these communities. Additionally, the SLs played a key role in promoting PLCs by encouraging teacher collaboration. The study concludes that SLs have the potential to strategize their actions to foster positive professional relations among teachers and ensure their well-being.

The study contributes to the literature on professional communities in Pakistan by validating a literature-driven PLC model. The model emphasizes collaboration among teachers, which can be facilitated by SLs. As such, the study implicates SLs in prioritizing the professional development of teachers to enhance student learning and achieve school success.

This study is unique in expanding a literature-driven PLC model within the Pakistani context, with a focus on teacher collaboration as facilitated by SLs. The model has the potential for replication in other contexts and can serve as a useful tool for future research.

Cyber violence is a global emerging issue which is growing with technology or online spaces, having a great influence on individual’s development. The purpose of this study is to identify the dominant factors of cyber violence and its influence on the cognitive development of female undergraduate students.

In this quantitative study, a questionnaire is used as a data collection tool. Moreover, this research is conducted on female undergraduate students (n = 300). Whereas, the purposive sampling technique is used and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 27.0) software is used to analyze the data.

The findings of this study show that cyber bullying is the dominant factor of cyber violence, whereas cyber doxxing has high influence on cognitive development of female undergraduate students. In addition, the value of correlational coefficient is 0.683, which indicates a strong positive correlation. Therefore, it supports that the null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted.

The findings of this study are of great importance for policymakers to update the regulations for cyber violence and provide the protection laws for victims whereas it is helpful for the investigation agencies and cybercrime units to be more active and needs to take immediate actions on reported incidents to minimize its further spread and support victims of it. Also, it helps society to understand the influence of it on cognitive health, which helps them to create a safer environment. Similarly, parents and teachers need to make a safe and comfortable environment around children and keep an eye on them. Further, it is beneficial for companies or online platforms to keep their sites or apps more secure for the users. Moreover, future research studies could expand the topic by involving different genders and age group peoples by using different methodologies to explore in depth.

This study is unique as there are limited studies, which identify the factor of cyber violence and its influence on cognitive development. Also, fewer studies can be seen in the context of Pakistan.

The purpose of the study is to classify the radiographic images into three categories such as fillings, cavity and implant to identify dental diseases because dental disease is a very common dental health problem for all people. The detection of dental issues and the selection of the most suitable method of treatment are both determined by the results of a radiological examination. Dental x-rays provide important information about the insides of teeth and their surrounding cells, which helps dentists detect dental issues that are not immediately visible. The analysis of dental x-rays, which is typically done by dentists, is a time-consuming process that can become an error-prone technique due to the wide variations in the structure of teeth and the dentist's lack of expertise. The workload of a dental professional and the chance of misinterpretation can be decreased by the availability of such a system, which can interpret the result of an x-ray automatically.

This study uses deep learning (DL) models to identify dental diseases in order to tackle this issue. Four different DL models, such as ResNet-101, Xception, DenseNet-201 and EfficientNet-B0, were evaluated in order to determine which one would be the most useful for the detection of dental diseases (such as fillings, cavity and implant).

Loss and accuracy curves have been used to analyze the model. However, the EfficientNet-B0 model performed better compared to Xception, DenseNet-201 and ResNet-101. The accuracy, recall, F1-score and AUC values for this model were 98.91, 98.91, 98.74 and 99.98%, respectively. The accuracy rates for the Xception, ResNet-101 and DenseNet-201 are 96.74, 93.48 and 95.65%, respectively.

The present study can benefit dentists from using the DL model to more accurately diagnose dental problems.

This study is conducted to evaluate dental diseases using Convolutional neural network (CNN) techniques to assist dentists in selecting the most effective technique for a particular clinical condition.

The study aims to develop a construct to measure talent management (TM) in an organization.

The study adopts a fourfold approach to develop the construct. Data were collected through close-ended questionnaires by conducting surveys from human resource professionals. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis techniques were employed to analyze the data and develop the construct.

Results of the study indicate that TM practices are crucial in changing business dynamics. A final 26 items under 5 factors (identification of critical positions, talent acquisition, talent development, talent engagement, and talent retention) were found significant and integrated TM strategies in uncertain economic environments.

This research focuses on the entire process of the TM cycle and develops an integrated construct of TM; thus, the study will provide an in-depth understanding of TM strategies to practitioners and researchers, facilitate researchers for the effective conduct of empirical research work on TM, whereas, for practitioners, this work will support in designing of TM strategies leading to organizational performance.

This is the first research study that has been done in the context of South Asia. It will help build up TM strategies to the necessity of a business environment.

The purpose of this study to explore the teacher’s perception about family aggression and domestic abuse that can cause students psychotic trauma. Also, this article will further highlight the mitigating strategies for teachers to overcome those challenges which they faced while dealing with such female students.

In this exploratory study, a qualitative data collection tool semi-structured interviews were used. This research interviews were conducted from public school teachers of Pakistan. For data analysis thematic analysis approach was used to answer the targeted research questions.

The findings of the study reveal that the family aggression and domestic abuse have severe negative effect on female students’ mental health which cause them trauma and also negatively impact of their educational progress and overall growth. Also, several challenges have been identified from the findings such as difficulty in identification of such female students, lack of support and counselling skills and social constraints. Similarly, this study also suggests some interventional and mitigating strategies to overcome these challenges faced by teachers such as, awareness sessions for parents and society, teachers training for such skills, including such contents in curriculum etc.

The results of the current study are beneficial for the teacher and school administration to handle such female students they are affected due to abuse and domestic violence and improve their mental well-being and growth.

This is a unique study because there is very limited research done in the context of Pakistan which addresses this burning social issue, particularly adding the voices of teacher’s about identifying and dealing such female students they are victim of family aggression and domestic abuse.

English is the language of global communication, worldwide mobility, job progress, and access to new information and research. Given the numerous roles that English plays in today's society, higher education institutes (HEIs) all over the world are pursuing English-medium education. For Pakistan, however, English-medium education is a colonial legacy rather than a deliberate choice. Research suggests that English-medium education is not devoid of controversy in higher education in Pakistan; nonetheless, students have to seek English-medium education in universities to compete with the world. In fact, being committed to SDG 4.7 Education for sustainable development and global citizenship, Pakistan is supposed to educate its citizens to become global citizens, for which English-medium education is essential. Given the fact that each of the five provinces of Pakistan has a distinct culture and sub-cultures, it is important to see how Pakistani students’ attitudes to English-medium education to become global citizens are different based on their cultural identities. Therefore, the present study aims to analyze undergraduates’ attitudes toward English-medium education based on their cultural identities to become global citizens.

Under the quantitative research paradigm, the present research adopted a comparative design. One hundred and fifty undergraduates participated in the study. The data were collected using a 15-item questionnaire on a 5-point Likert scale, and it was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 27.0.

The results of the study revealed that participants regardless of their cultural identities have positive attitudes towards English-medium education as they believe it to be a source of career development, and improvement of their language, communication, and interpersonal skills. The participants also did not see English-medium education posing any threat to traditional culture and local languages. The findings of the present study also revealed that there is no statistical difference across the different categories of cultural identity.

The findings of the present study regarding students’ attitudes toward English-medium education will have implications for policymakers and university administration. Since cultural identity does not hinder acceptance of English-medium education, students’ positive attitudes can help policymakers promote multilingualism and English-medium education for career development. However, high-quality English language programs are crucial for maximizing the benefits. Likewise, positive attitudes of students towards English-medium education in Pakistan suggest students’ openness to intercultural dialogue. Therefore, university administration can further enhance student exchange programs for transnational research and development. Likewise, the study implies that cultural identity may not hinder English-medium education implementation in developing countries provided that practical benefits like career advancement and communication skill are emphasized.

The study is unique in the sense that it analyses undergraduates’ attitudes towards English-medium education concerning students’ cultural identities and global citizenship which have not been studied previously.

The conventional teaching methods in higher education institutions often seem unsuccessful in meeting diverse learning needs of learners, leading to suboptimal instructional outcomes. In Pakistani context, where teaching methods and educational infrastructure still need improvement, there is dire need to examine the impact of technology-supported personalized learning (TSPL) on dimensions of instructional quality (IQ) such as cognitive activation (CA), supportive climate (SC) and classroom management (CM) in higher education institutions.

This study used quantitative method specifically correlational research design in which data was collected from 290 undergraduates enrolled in one of the universities of Sindh, Pakistan. The questionnaire comprised 27 items including 12 items focusing descriptive statistics and 15 items addressing inferential statistics. The respondents marked on five-point Likert scale and data was analyzed through SPSS software version 27.0 by conducting Pearson’s correlation test to determine the relationship between TSPL and IQ.

The study concluded that there is strong positive relationship between TSPL and the three dimensions of IQ. Specifically, TSPL was found to be correlational with CA (r = 0.85), SC (r = 0.78) and CM (r = 0.80). It indicates that TSPL has major role in enhancing CA, SC and CM contributing to improvement in IQ. Moreover, the results indicate that learners who engage in TSPL experiences depict higher level of engagement, better academic performance and enhanced collaborative learning environment. It suggests that TSPL not only improves learners’ cognitive processes but also fosters a supportive and well-managed learning environment that is crucial for improvement in IQ.

The results of the study emphasize the significance of integrating TSPL in higher education institutions to enhance IQ. Among practical implications, investment in technological infrastructure, professional learning of teachers and active participation of stakeholders in planning and implementation of TSPL are major steps to maximize its benefits. Furthermore, this study serves as an empirical evidence for multi-dimensional benefits of TSPL in a context-specific learning environment. Mainly, it highlights the contextual adaptation of TSPL that can help policymakers and educators in improving educational outcomes.

This study adds empirical evidence to the existing literature related to the impact of TSPL on IQ in HEIs. It further indicates the multi-dimensional benefits of TSPL and provides practical suggestions for educators and policy makers to improve educational outcomes. It provides an original addition in the form of context-specific study that may be applicable to similar contexts.

Technology-based collaborative learning (TBCL) is the manner in which students can use technological tools and digital platforms to share knowledge and learn collaboratively. It can help increase students’ participation, motivation and achievement due to the stimulating teaching environment. The study intends to examine the effect of TBCL on students’ competency-based education (CBE).

A questionnaire as quantitative data gathering tool is employed in this correlational study. This study used purposive sampling which is done on undergraduate university students (N = 187) in order to accomplish the goal. The data are analyzed using the SPSS software (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) version 27.0.

The findings of this study indicate the strong positive association between the TBCL and students’ CBE with the correlation coefficient value 0.993. Hence, the null hypothesis is rejected, and alternative hypothesis of this study is accepted.

The findings will provide valuable insights that will help educators, policymakers, industry partners and researchers better prepare students for the demands of the digital age and improve the quality of education by identifying successful strategies for integrating technology into collaborative learning environments.

This study is unique because it synthesizes and analyzes previous research to look at the particular context of TBCL and how it affects students' CBE in higher education institution in Sindh that was not previously investigated.