Ismail Ismail, Muhammad Sohail, Hammad Gilani, Anwar Ali, Kiramat Hussain, Kamran Hussain, Bhaskar Singh Karky, Faisal Mueen Qamer, Waqas Qazi, Wu Ning and Rajan Kotru
The purpose of the study is to analyse the occurrence and distribution of different tree species in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, as a baseline for further inventories, and estimate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to analyse the occurrence and distribution of different tree species in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, as a baseline for further inventories, and estimate the biomass per species and plot. Furthermore, it aims to measure forest biodiversity using established formulae for tree species diversity index, richness, evenness and accumulative curve.
Design/methodology/approach
Field data were collected, including stratification of forest sample plots. Statistical analysis of the data was carried out, and locally appropriate allometric equations were applied for biomass estimation.
Findings
Representative circular 556 forest sample plots of 1,000 m2 contained 13,135 trees belonging to nine tree species with a total aboveground biomass of 12,887 tonnes. Sixty-eight per cent of the trees were found between 2,600 and 3,400 masl; approximately 63 per cent had a diameter at breast height equal to 30 cm, and 45 per cent were less than 12 m in height. The Shannon diversity index was 1.82, and Simpson’s index of diversity was 0.813.
Research limitations/implications
Rough terrain, long distances, harsh weather conditions and location of forest in steep narrow valleys presented challenges for the field crews, and meant that fieldwork took longer than planned.
Practical implications
Estimating biomass in Gilgit-Baltistan’s forests using locally developed allometric equations will provide transparency in estimates of forest reference levels, National Forest Monitoring System in Pakistan and devising Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation national strategies and for effective implementation.
Originality/value
This paper presents the first detailed forest inventory carried out for the dry temperate and semi-arid cold region of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan.
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Milad Farzin, Marzieh Sadeghi, Fatemeh Yahyayi Kharkeshi, Hedyeh Ruholahpur and Majid Fattahi
The purpose of this study is to investigate important factors that help explain customer willingness to adopt mobile banking (M-banking). To this end, the unified theory of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate important factors that help explain customer willingness to adopt mobile banking (M-banking). To this end, the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2) was applied and to more accurately predict customer behavioral intentions, it was attempted to extend it.
Design/methodology/approach
The research data were collected from 396 customers of Iranian private banks who had the experience of using M-banking. The structural equation modeling technique was used to test the research hypotheses.
Findings
Findings suggest that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, habit, hedonic motivation, perceived value and trialability are endorsed as proponents of M-banking adoption intention. On the other hand, M-banking adoption intention has also had a significant positive effect on actual use behavior and word-of-mouth (WOM). WOM has also influenced actual use behavior and mediated the relationship between M-banking adoption intention and actual use behavior.
Research limitations/implications
The present study focuses on private banks, therefore, although it is sufficient, it is limited to private cases. This study contributes to the literature on M-banking services and actual use behavior. By appropriately focusing on M-banking adoption intention and the service quality provided, banks can strengthen their relationships with customers, thereby stimulating actual customer behavior such as actual use behavior and WOM.
Originality/value
From theoretical and managerial aspects, this study has particular value for the literature on M-services’ intention in general and banking in particular. The present study provides a conceptual framework for M-banking adoption intention, which could be used in M-banking services. In addition, this study sought to extend UTAUT2 and to examine the mediating role of WOM in actual use behavior motivation as well.
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Darunnee Limtrakul, Krongporn Ongprasert, Pisittawoot Ayood, Ratana Sapbamrer and Penprapa Siviroj
Childcare is an essential part of early life environment that has a significant influence on lifelong physical and mental health. This study aimed to examine the relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
Childcare is an essential part of early life environment that has a significant influence on lifelong physical and mental health. This study aimed to examine the relationship between development, growth and frequency of illness in different types of care.
Design/methodology/approach
This cross-sectional study recruited 177 children aged 30–36 months and their caregivers. Of these 66 were being cared for at home and 111 were attending out-of-home day-care facilities. An interview form, growth measurement and the Denver Developmental Screening Test II were collected. The association between child developmental, growth and illness variables was analyzed with Chi-square, Fisher's exact and Mann–Whitney U tests.
Findings
This study found that the development and growth results did not show statistically significant differences between the home-care and day-care groups. The number of minor illnesses was significantly lower in home-care children than in day-care children (OR = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.15-0.72).
Research limitations/implications
This study indicated that the risk of infection is increased in the children attending day care. Provision of a healthy and safe childcare environment needs to be an essential health promotion strategy to improve family and child well-being.
Originality/value
As the number of women's participation in the labor market has increased rapidly over the past decades, so did the number of children in nonparental care. The study findings reflect that the development of a day-care center for children was unclear, whereas the risk of infection was increased. Therefore, provision of a healthy and safe childcare environment needs to be an essential health promotion strategy to improve family and child well-being.
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Munshi Naser Ibne Afzal, Md Abu Nayeem Sadi and Shamim Ahmad Siddiqui
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) aims at upholding socio-economic condition of deprived communities prevailing in society as well as bringing profitability for corporate…
Abstract
Purpose
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) aims at upholding socio-economic condition of deprived communities prevailing in society as well as bringing profitability for corporate companies themselves. This study investigates to what extent the CSR initiatives of financial institutions in Bangladesh have been able to reach out to deprived communities and support various dimensions of financial inclusion (FI) in the country.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, both supply-side and demand-side data are included and discussed rigorously as tools to cross-check the result. Both qualitative and quantitative data are incorporated, and graphs and tables are used to represent the critical information better. A triangulation of in-depth interviews with secondary data is used to ensure rigor and trustworthiness. The triangulation approach works as a method to verify secondary data by interviewees in this study.
Findings
The result shows a positive geographical and demographical penetration of CSR activities, but it does not necessarily bring FI in all cases. This study identifies some key issues that prevail in the current context of Bangladesh, such as usage, distance, quality and cost of financial products.
Originality/value
This study makes use of both supply-side and demand-side information and thus explain the reasons behind the involuntary exclusion of financial services.
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Nusrat Jahan and Golam Shahria
In Bangladesh, the banking companies have huge opportunity to capture market share by properly understanding the critical aspect of customer satisfaction. This paper mainly…
Abstract
Purpose
In Bangladesh, the banking companies have huge opportunity to capture market share by properly understanding the critical aspect of customer satisfaction. This paper mainly focuses on young generation as target group to find out their differential perception. This study aims to identify most influencing factors and determine their influencing power on young customer's satisfaction and retention in mobile banking.
Design/methodology/approach
It is a quantitative research with self-administered questionnaire as primary data collection instrument. Existing literature and published articles are reviewed as secondary data for hypothesis development. Out of 300 questionnaires, 279 usable questionnaires were returned and these collected data were analyzed by partial least square-structural equation model (PLS-SEM) with the use of Smart_PLS (V 327) to validate the model and test the hypothesis.
Findings
The findings of the research revealed that expense, responsiveness and relative advantage have significant influence while security and convenience have insignificant influence on satisfaction. But they are not directly related with loyalty although satisfaction and loyalty strongly related with each other.
Originality/value
Although mobile banking is not a new issue in Bangladesh, the use of PLS_SEM to measure young user's satisfaction as the customer of mobile banking is not available in literature. So, this paper is an attempt to fill up this gap. In spite of having some limitation the research provides some practical implication for banks with better strategic insight to design mobile banking services to yield higher customer satisfaction.
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This paper aims to highlight contrasts between the writing of young people in the UAE and Japan. For comparison, anthologies of 50-word short stories written in English, resulting…
Abstract
This paper aims to highlight contrasts between the writing of young people in the UAE and Japan. For comparison, anthologies of 50-word short stories written in English, resulting from the Extremely Short Story Competition (ESSC) in each country are examined. These two ESSC anthologies were created under similar conditions in 2006. Analysis of the most frequently-appearing topics in each ESSC anthology provides insights into the daily life, general mindsets, behavior, preferences, values and culture of these two groups. These data help us to understand the everyday life and social context of young people in the UAE and Japan. Thematic analysis shows that youth in both countries are often preoccupied with seeking identity, and regard friends to be important. Both groups of young people also appear to appreciate the beauty of nature and feel affection towards living creatures. An identifying characteristic of Emirati youth is that they talk about death more often than do the Japanese writers; in addition, the ESSC anthologies indicate UAE society is remarkably family-oriented, with life being firmly connected to Islam and God. In contrast, Japanese youth show they are keen to engage in various hobbies and also like to express their romantic feelings and thankfulness for their environment. The ESSC was originally designed to develop students’ creative writing in English. This study explains that corpora generated by the ESSC may be used to illuminate the lives and societies of students living in disparate countries, with implications for planning and delivering locally appropriate education.
A real-time production scheduling method for semiconductor back-end manufacturing process becomes increasingly important in industry 4.0. Semiconductor back-end manufacturing…
Abstract
Purpose
A real-time production scheduling method for semiconductor back-end manufacturing process becomes increasingly important in industry 4.0. Semiconductor back-end manufacturing process is always accompanied by order splitting and merging; besides, in each stage of the process, there are always multiple machine groups that have different production capabilities and capacities. This paper studies a multi-agent based scheduling architecture for the radio frequency identification (RFID)-enabled semiconductor back-end shopfloor, which integrates not only manufacturing resources but also human factors.
Design/methodology/approach
The architecture includes a task management (TM) agent, a staff instruction (SI) agent, a task scheduling (TS) agent, an information management center (IMC), machine group (MG) agent and a production monitoring (PM) agent. Then, based on the architecture, the authors developed a scheduling method consisting of capability & capacity planning and machine configuration modules in the TS agent.
Findings
The authors used greedy policy to assign each order to the appropriate machine groups based on the real-time utilization ration of each MG in the capability & capacity (C&C) planning module, and used a partial swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to schedule each splitting job to the identified machine based on the C&C planning results. At last, we conducted a case study to demonstrate the proposed multi-agent based real-time production scheduling models and methods.
Originality/value
This paper proposes a multi-agent based real-time scheduling framework for semiconductor back-end industry. A C&C planning and a machine configuration algorithm are developed, respectively. The paper provides a feasible solution for semiconductor back-end manufacturing process to realize real-time scheduling.
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Xiaoyu Chen, Yonggang Leng, Fei Sun, Xukun Su, Shuailing Sun and Junjie Xu
The existing Nonlinear Dynamic Vibration Absorbers (NLDVAs) have the disadvantages of complex structure, high cost, high installation space requirements and difficulty in…
Abstract
Purpose
The existing Nonlinear Dynamic Vibration Absorbers (NLDVAs) have the disadvantages of complex structure, high cost, high installation space requirements and difficulty in miniaturization. And most of the NLDVAs have not been applied to reality. To address the above issues, a novel Triple-magnet Magnetic Dynamic Vibration Absorber (TMDVA) with tunable stiffness, only composed of triple cylindrical permanent magnets and an acrylic tube, is designed, modeled and tested in this paper.
Design/methodology/approach
(1) A novel TMDVA is designed. (2) Theoretical and experimental methods. (3) Equivalent dynamics model.
Findings
It is found that adjusting the magnet distance can effectively optimize the vibration reduction effect of the TMDVA under different resonance conditions. When the resonance frequency of the cantilever changes, the magnet distance of the TMDVA with a high vibration reduction effect shows an approximately linear relationship with the resonance frequency of the cantilever which is convenient for the design optimization of the TMDVA.
Originality/value
Both the simulation and experimental results prove that the TMDVA can effectively reduce the vibration of the cantilever even if the resonance frequency of the cantilever changes, which shows the strong robustness of the TMDVA. Given all that, the TMDVA has potential application value in the passive vibration reduction of engineering structures.
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Yuyu Sun, Yuchen Zhang and Zhiguo Zhao
Considering the impact of the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) policy on forecasting the port cargo throughput, this paper constructs a fractional grey multivariate forecasting model to…
Abstract
Purpose
Considering the impact of the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) policy on forecasting the port cargo throughput, this paper constructs a fractional grey multivariate forecasting model to improve the prediction accuracy of port cargo throughput and realize the coordinated development of FTZ policymaking and port construction.
Design/methodology/approach
Considering the effects of data randomization, this paper proposes a novel self-adaptive grey multivariate prediction model, namely FDCGM(1,N). First, fractional-order accumulative generation operation (AGO) is introduced, which integrates the policy impact effect. Second, the heuristic grey wolf optimization (GWO) algorithm is used to determine the optimal nonlinear parameters. Finally, the novel model is then applied to port scale simulation and forecasting in Tianjin and Fujian where FTZs are situated and compared with three other grey models and two machine learning models.
Findings
In the Tianjin and Fujian cases, the new model outperforms the other comparison models, with the least mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) values of 6.07% and 4.16% in the simulation phase, and 6.70% and 1.63% in the forecasting phase, respectively. The results of the comparative analysis find that after the constitution of the FTZs, Tianjin’s port cargo throughput has shown a slow growth trend, and Fujian’s port cargo throughput has exhibited rapid growth. Further, the port cargo throughput of Tianjin and Fujian will maintain a growing trend in the next four years.
Practical implications
The new multivariable grey model can effectively reduce the impact of data randomness on forecasting. Meanwhile, FTZ policy has regional heterogeneity in port development, and the government can take different measures to improve the development of ports.
Originality/value
Under the background of FTZ policy, the new multivariable model can be used to achieve accurate prediction, which is conducive to determining the direction of port development and planning the port layout.
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Keywords
For many pattern recognition problems, the relation between the sample vectors and the class labels are known during the data acquisition procedure. However, how to find the…
Abstract
Purpose
For many pattern recognition problems, the relation between the sample vectors and the class labels are known during the data acquisition procedure. However, how to find the useful rules or knowledge hidden in the data is very important and challengeable. Rule extraction methods are very useful in mining the important and heuristic knowledge hidden in the original high-dimensional data. It can help us to construct predictive models with few attributes of the data so as to provide valuable model interpretability and less training times.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, a novel rule extraction method with the application of biclustering algorithm is proposed.
Findings
To choose the most significant biclusters from the huge number of detected biclusters, a specially modified information entropy calculation method is also provided. It will be shown that all of the important knowledge is in practice hidden in these biclusters.
Originality/value
The novelty of the new method lies in the detected biclusters can be conveniently translated into if-then rules. It provides an intuitively explainable and comprehensive approach to extract rules from high-dimensional data while keeping high classification accuracy.