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This paper describes the development of a hybrid knowledge base system and genetic algorithms to select the optimum excavating and haulage equipment in opencast mining. The knowledge base system selects the equipment in broad categories based on the geological, technical and environmental characteristics of the mine. To further identify the make, size and number of each piece of equipment that minimizes the total cost of the operation, the problem is solved using the genetic algorithms mechanism. Results of four case studies are presented to show the validation of the developed system.

This article explores the values that local government senior managers assume in their day‐to‐day relationship with elected officials (councillors). The study is set in the state of Victoria, Australia which, along with the two other levels of Australian government, has a strong historical association with the Westminster system of public management. The findings demonstrate that local government senior managers practice the fundamental values and beliefs of public management neutrality.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of innovation and differentiation strategy on financial performance with a focus on the role of risk management and intellectual capital of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

In this research, differentiation and innovation strategy criteria are the independent variables, performance criteria are the dependent variables and risk management effectiveness and intellectual capital are the moderating variables. The statistical population of this research includes all the companies listed in the Tehran Stock Exchange during the 10-year period, and 127 companies were selected as a statistical sample using the systematic elimination method. The research model fitting and hypothesis testing were carried out using structural equation modeling and SPSS, Smart PLS software.

The results of the hypothesis testing showed a positive and significant relationship between the innovation and differentiation strategy and the firm performance. In addition, effective management of risk and intellectual capital also had a significant and positive impact on this relationship.

Given that this research was conducted at the Tehran Stock Exchange, it was difficult for the researchers to collect data. Also, since the Tehran Stock Exchange is a new market, a lot of research needs to be done in different areas of this market to identify the existing problems and shortcomings and to provide reasons for its growth and development.

According to the results of the research on the impact of intellectual capital and risk management on corporate performance and the impact of strategy on this relationship, this paper can expect to see an improvement in corporate performance and an increase in shareholder wealth as a result of applying the results of this research.

Considering that corporate strategy, intellectual capital criteria and risk management to increase the financial performance of companies have informational content; therefore, according to the results of this research, an increase in the performance of listed companies is expected, and naturally, this increase in performance will lead to the prosperity of the economic sector, increase in job creation and as a result, improve the quality of social life.

In the Tehran Stock Exchange, by properly evaluating the financial performance criteria of companies and identifying the factors that increase intellectual capital and risk management, they provide the means to improve knowledge in this area of research.

The purpose of this paper is to present the case of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka, a state in the South of India, which is the centre of this research project.

Starting with a summary of the theoretical context of this district, the paper considers the informationalism paradigm. Then, it analyzes in depth the context of Bangalore, with the analytical session devoted to the institutional actors involved and their relationships, heart of the entire system. In the final part, the paper attempts to give meaning to the identity of Bangalore, and also it investigates its future sustainability, both economic and social.

The paper finds that Bangalore is not the Silicon Valley of Asia. According to the district literature, each district has its own specific and unrepeatable features.

It is useful as an analytical expedient to study specifically the district of Bangalore itself, its evolution and its characteristics.

This research aims to ascertain the various operational maturity challenges faced by the online food ordering and delivery enterprises (OFODE), their nature and their interactive relationships. In particular, this paper aims to (a) identify the most relevant operational maturity challenges faced by the OFODE during the COVID-19 lockdown in Oman, (b) explore and establish any likely structural relationship among these challenges and (c) put them into logical clusters.

Experts helped to reduce the 18 initially identified maturity challenges to 13 most pressing ones. Mutual relationships, dominance of interactions and their classifications were explored using fuzzy interpretive structural modeling (FISM) and fuzzy MICMAC analysis.

The study of situation-specific operational maturity challenges convinced the authors to propose a distinct FISM model that depicts the relationship among these challenges. Keeping commissions and fees reasonable emerges as the challenge which all other challenges seemingly culminate into. One of the most important situation-specific challenges (i.e. customer confidence about infection free delivery) emerges as a linkage challenge which aggravates as well as is aggravated by certain challenges.

Besides enriching literature, the proposed model has implications for practitioners particularly when the similar lethal waves are experienced anywhere. The number of respondents, subjective approach, specific context as well as the geographical area coverage are the key limitations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first known scientific effort which attempts to model the operational maturity challenges faced by the OFODE during COVID-19 lockdown period. The authors used the FISM modeling approach to forge these interrelated challenges into a structural model.

Considering the problems faced by the home appliance industry in Iran, such as the increase in waste, lack of information transparency and lack of traceability of manufactured products, etc. the companies in the home appliance industry are moving toward Industry 4.0 and have been prompted to use it. On the other hand, the adoption of Industry 4.0 is associated with challenges that may lead to the failure of the adoption project and the bankruptcy of home appliance manufacturers. This study identified the challenges in the implementation of Industry 4.0 on current status and provided suitable solutions to overcome the identified challenges.

In this study, a review of the literature and background of Industry 4.0 identified the challenges that influence the adoption of Industry 4.0. To measure the current status of the identified challenges, the opinions of experts in the Iranian home appliance industry were used. To find solutions to the challenges in the adoption of Industry 4.0 in the Iranian home appliance industry, a fuzzy cognitive mapping and scenario design were used.

The results of this study show that to face the challenge of data sharing, skilled personnel should be effectively promoted among workers in the home appliance industry. The results of this study also show that the barriers to cooperation should be removed to reduce the impact of the IT Security Concerns challenge.

This paper is the first article that identifies the challenges and effective solutions for implementing Industry 4.0 in the home appliance industry.

In the context of ongoing Israel-Palestine war, this study aims to explore whether consumer animosity (CA) influences individuals’ reluctance to purchase brands contributing towards the hostile nation. Furthermore, it investigates the mediating effects of product judgement (PJ), boycott motivation (BM) and boycott participation (BP) in this relationship. It also examines the moderating roles of susceptibility to subjective norms (SSN) and switching barriers (SB) in shaping their relationships with purchase aversion (PA).

Using existing validated scales, the authors designed and administered an online survey to collect 589 responses from India and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Using Smart PLS 4.0, the authors tested the hypothesized direct and indirect (mediated-moderated) relationships.

The findings reveal that in India, CA towards certain brands leads to negative evaluations, BM and BP. In GCC countries, it positively influences BM and BP. In general, SB subsides the influence of BM, PJ and BP on PA; however, SB has no moderating effects at all in the study.

Drawing upon the theory of planned behaviour, this paper offers novel insights into mediating and moderating roles of selected variables, namely, PJ, BM, BP, SSN and SB, in the direct relationship of CA and PA.

Before the British colonial regime, Muslims in South Asia recognized a transnational notion of education that stretched on all sides, including the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Central and South-East Asia, with a great social awakening and consciousness about the importance of inclusive education. Academia included theological and secular subjects and focused on producing thoughtful, sophisticated, and confident individuals ready to defend their beliefs with sound knowledge and reasoning. However, the British Raj in the 19th and 20th centuries had a lasting and indelible impression on the Muslims and the Islamic education system. British colonial regime challenged the theological discourse and education and compelled a Western style of education. These transformations in the education system raised several dilemmas and impasses for the Muslims of South Asia. Pakistan has remained a silent recipient of this tension underpinned in its educational systems even before its inception. This chapter traces the roots of education systems operating in Pakistan starting from the ninth century with the victory of Mohammad Bin Qasim through the 19th-century colonial rule of Great Britain until today, when the country offers a blend of diverse education systems. The study explores values embedded in different education systems operating in Pakistan. It is essential to understand the values inherent in these systems to see the harmony or conflict prevailing as a consequence which might have repercussions for the different societal segments and communities. Renewed focus toward value realization will facilitate refining educational frameworks and a promise for the acceptance of global and international advancements.

This study endeavours to (a) develop a comprehensive interpretive structural modelling (ISM) toolkit containing sufficient details about the suitability and procedural aspects of each ISM approach and offer points of reference for budding researchers, (b) highlight the compatibility of ISM approaches with other qualitative and quantitative approaches, and (c) chalk-out an agenda for future research.

This study is based on an extensive review of 74 studies where researchers have used one or more ISM approaches. These studies span across the different industry sectors.

There exists a huge void in terms of the methodological synthesis of ISM approaches. ISM approaches are frequently used in sync with other qualitative and quantitative approaches. Furthermore, it highlights the need of improving the robustness of the proposed ISM models by sharing the critical details of research process.

Being a review-based work, it could not illustrate the discussed ISM approaches with real data. However, it offers a research agenda for the prospective researchers.

The prerequisites, pitfalls, suitability and the procedural aspects of various ISM approaches contained in this toolkit are equally useful for the academicians as well as practitioners.

In the absence of a synthesized framework, this study contributes a comprehensive ISM toolkit which will help the researchers to choose a suitable ISM approach in a given case.

There is a gap in knowledge about the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) because most studies are undertaken in countries outside the Gulf region – such as China, India, the US and Taiwan. The stock market contains rich, valuable and considerable data, and these data need careful analysis for good decisions to be made that can lead to increases in the efficiency of a business. Data mining techniques offer data processing tools and applications used to enhance decision-maker decisions. This study aims to predict the Kuwait stock market by applying big data mining.

The methodology used is quantitative techniques, which are mathematical and statistical models that describe a various array of the relationships of variables. Quantitative methods used to predict the direction of the stock market returns by using four techniques were implemented: logistic regression, decision trees, support vector machine and random forest.

The results are all variables statistically significant at the 5% level except gold price and oil price. Also, the variables that do not have an influence on the direction of the rate of return of Boursa Kuwait are money supply and gold price, unlike the Kuwait index, which has the highest coefficient. Furthermore, the height score of the variable that affects the direction of the rate of return is the firms, and the accuracy of the overall performance of the four models is nearly 50%.

Some of the limitations identified for this study are as follows: (1) location limitation: Kuwait Stock Exchange; (2) time limitation: the amount of time available to accomplish the study, where the period was completed within the academic year 2019-2020 and the academic year 2020-2021. During 2020, the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), which was a major obstacle, occurred during data collection and analysis; (3) data limitation: The Kuwait Stock Exchange data were collected from May 2019 to March 2020, while the factors affecting the stock exchange data were collected in July 2020 due to the corona pandemic.

The study used new titles, variables and techniques such as using data mining to predict the Kuwait stock market. There are no adequate studies that predict the stock market by data mining in the GCC, especially in Kuwait. There is a gap in knowledge in the GCC as most studies are in foreign countries, such as China, India, the US and Taiwan.