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The study aims to review the literatures on the effect of fiber length on the mechanical response of natural fiber composite will help the researchers to know about the perspective of the various natural fibers in making of composite concerning fiber length. The review summarized the work of the other researchers, thereby unambiguously précised suitability of a specific natural fiber for a matrix in use. Thus, one can identify the use of the same fibers–matrix combination to obtain composites with different properties with the control of fiber/matrix interface.

The review work proposes a new kind of diagrammatic representation that expresses the influence of fiber length. This work has not been explored before in this specific format. The chronology of work may help to select natural fibers for use in composites for a specific matrix.

The length of the fiber perception in terms of “critical” length decides the need for pre-treatment process of natural fiber to improve shear stress at the interface for various matrices.

The current review paper attempts to shed light on the association between the fiber length of natural fiber and the mechanical response of natural fiber composite. Moreover, it probes the concepts of critical fiber length as a persuadable factor.

Recent studies suggest extensive use of environmental resources in agrofarming degrades ecosystem significantly. In this backdrop, this study aims at assessing ecoefficiency of paddy farming. Because ecoefficiency links up between economic performances and environmental resources supporting the provision of goods and services for the society, this study further investigates the effectiveness of attending Farmers' Field School (FFS), an agroenvironmental program, in conserving environmental resources through improving farm-level ecoefficiency.

In a dataset of 200 randomly selected paddy farmers from three districts of the southwestern Bangladesh, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to compute both radial and pressure-specific (nutrient balance, energy balance, irrigation and pesticide lethal risk) ecoefficiency scores. Furthermore, propensity score matching (PSM) technique is applied to examine the impact of FFS program on farm-level ecoefficiency.

The DEA results suggest that paddy farmers are highly eco-inefficient. The computed radial eco-efficiency score is 0.40 implying farmers could reduce around 60% of environmental pressure equiproportionally even by maintaining the same level of value addition. In addition, the PSM results suggest farmers' participation in FFS program led to around 22.5% higher radial ecoefficiency and 7–25% higher environmental pressure-specific eco-efficiencies. Furthermore, simulation exercises reveal that FFS participation in interaction with farm size would lead to around 32–40% reduction of all environmental pressures.

Promoting FFS programs among paddy farmers could be an effective policy option to improve eco-efficiency through environment-friendly farming paradigm.

This study is probably the maiden effort that has examined the impact of attending the FFS program on ecoefficiency improvement in Bangladesh. This study contributes to both the concern literature by adding useful information and the policymakers by providing new insights about the reduction of environmental resource usage with maintaining the same value addition from agrofarming.

This paper aims to study students' strategic behaviors for increasing their job prospect in response to university administrators' moves for lifting up institutional reputation in the academia.

A Stackelberg differential game is used to study this strategic interplay between administrators and students. In this game, an administrator maximizes institutional quality to build university reputation while student maximizes grades to increase their job prospects. Therefore, administrators being the leader move first while students set strategies for maximizing their objective function by following administrators' move.

The study produces several distinctive results by analyzing administrator–students’ strategic interactions. First, university administrators need to be sufficiently more impatient for building reputation by improving institutional quality than students’ impatience for increasing their job prospects to have feasible solutions. Second, students attempt to increase academic grades for making them more marketable in response to administrators’ additional efforts for increasing their students’ job prospects. Third, exogenous increase in university reputation improves institutional quality and students’ job prospects without affecting their academic grades. However, increase in job prospects motivates students to increase their grades. Fourth, administrators’ too much impatience for increasing university reputation could inflate students’ grade, reduce job prospect and degrade institutional quality. Fifth, an exogenous rise in students’ impatience improves institutional quality and students’ job prospects but reduces students’ grades. Finally, the exogenous increase in opportunity cost of securing good grade degrades institutional quality, thus reducing further job prospects. Therefore, administrators’ positive but moderate impatience for reputation will improve students’ academic performances, institutional quality and job prospects.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyze students’ strategic responses for improving their job prospects in response to administrators’ actions for enhancing university reputation. It helps administrators to design an effective framework for building university reputation in the academic market through improving institutional quality and expanding job markets for their students.

The study principally aims to investigate the relationship among work–life balance (WLB), job satisfaction (JS) and employee commitment (EC) among the railway staff by integrating the social exchange theory (SET). The study also explores JS as a mediator in the context of the new normal.

A mixed-method sequential explanatory design was utilized for this study. The research instrument was administered to 533 railway employees, using purposive sampling to ensure reliability and validity. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the quantitative data and measure mediation effects. Additionally, 15 interviews were conducted with employees from three job positioning groups (A, B and C) to gain further insights into commitment-related concerns.

The study found that WLB and JS positively influenced EC, with JS acting as a mediator between WLB and EC. Furthermore, factors such as fostering friendships among colleagues, effectively managing work–life integration and recognizing the importance of job roles were identified as crucial in enhancing the relationship between WLB and EC.

The study includes SET to examine the social exchange process while considering WLB benefits as a reward from the employer and EC as the outcome of this reward. This study contributes by examining the effects of COVID-19 on the railway industry and EC. The mixed-methods sequential explanatory design gave a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between WLB, JS and EC. The study’s implications highlight the importance of implementing supportive policies, such as flexible work schedules and a supportive organizational culture, to enhance employee commitment and reduce attrition rates. The study emphasizes the significance of prioritizing employee well-being to achieve organizational goals and enhance organizational commitment.

By incorporating the role of nonperforming loans (NPLs), the study aims to assess the impact of global financial crisis (GFC) on the intermediation efficiency of Indian banks for the period of 1998/99 to 2016/17.

To obtain efficiency level of Indian banks, this study applied sequential data envelopment analysis (DEA) based directional distance function (DDF) approach, which performed simultaneous expansion of desirable output and reduction of undesirable output in the bank's loan production structure. Additionally, using fixed effect regression approach in the panel data framework, this study assesses both the phenomenon of σ- and unconditional β-efficiency convergence in public sector banks (PSBs), private banks (PBs), foreign banks (FBs) and overall scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) during the pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis years in India.

Irrespective of the bank's production model, the evidence suggests that the accounting NPLs as an undesirable output significantly deteriorating the intermediation technical efficiency levels of Indian banks, especially after the crisis years until the last year of the study period. This reflects that Indian banks failed more to achieve their financial intermediation objective in the post-crisis years as compared to the crisis and pre-crisis years. In-depth, statistical evidence of commercial bank ownership groups reveals that public sector banks exhibit a higher level of efficiency in pursuance of traditional loan-based activity followed by private and foreign banks. The study also found the existence of sigma convergence in technical efficiency levels of Indian banks and ownership groups as well.

This study is perhaps the first one, which present the robust evolution of Indian banks intermediation efficiency by taking into account both endogenous (i.e. NPLs as an undesirable output and equity as a quasi-fixed input in the bank production process) crisis and exogenous (i.e. global financial and economic stress) crises. Moreover, none of the existing studies have conducted sub-period wise analysis to show the apparent occurrence of both convergence properties in technical efficiency, adding novelty in the literature.

Environmental pollution has been a great concern for the government of Bangladesh. Bangladesh was the least developed country, with a lot of financial challenges. The industrial process in Bangladesh has not been able to maintain the directives of the SDGs. The lack of proper industrial policy, technological backwardness and lacunae in implementing environmental governance have affected the environment of the country. The unorganised and informal manufacturing units are often accused of emitting greenhouse gases. Like other South Asian countries, the informal manufacturing sector in Bangladesh has been established without proper planning and environmental guidelines. In Bangladesh, the informal sector includes brick kilns, food processing factories, leather tanning, etc., which are responsible for environmental pollution, health hazards and violations of SDG goals. The issue of environmental pollution by the informal manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh needs to be investigated in the context of the socioeconomic profile of the country and the performance of the government in monitoring the issue. Due to the lack of environmental governance, a high level of pollution has been occurring in the country. What kinds of economic tools and industrial policies are needed to be implemented to avoid environmental hazards? The content analysis method will be applied in this chapter.