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Eri is a short-stapled fibre that possesses an excellent soft feel and warmness to the wearer. Investigation of thermal comfort and moisture properties of Eri silk fabric provides the enhanced commercial scope for Eri silk-based clothing.

To examine the impact of process factors on thermal and moisture properties, three different single knit Eri silk structures were made, each with a different loop length and yarn count. Three different linear densities of Eri silk spun yarn (15, 20 and 25 tex) were selected. Three distinct knitted constructions, including plain jersey, popcorn and cellular blister, were created, along with two different loop lengths.

The novel cellular blister structure has shown appreciable thermal comfort properties than the other two structures. Yarn fineness and loop length were significant with most of the thermal comfort properties.

In recent times the Eri silk production is completely domesticated, so the new demand can easily be met by the producers. This research will create a new scope for Eri silk fibres in sportswear and leisure wear.

This study was conducted to explore the influence of knit structure, loop length and yarn count on the thermal comfort properties of the clothing.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the characteristics of cellulose fibres derived from the pseudo-stems of Curcuma longa and to evaluate the properties of non-woven fabric produced using these fibres.

The fibres were extracted via a decortication method. The acquired intrinsic qualities of the fibres were used to assess the feasibility of using them in textile applications. The thermal bonding approach was used for the development of the non-woven fabric, using a hot press machine with low-melt polyester fibre as a binder.

The mean length of Curcuma longa fibres was determined to be 52.73 cm, with a fineness value of 4.00 tex. The fibres exhibited an uneven cross-sectional morphology, characterized by a diverse range of oval-shaped lumens. The fibre exhibited a tenacity of 1.45 g/denier and an elongation value of 4.30%. The fibres possessed a moisture regain value of 11.30%. The experimental non-woven fabrics had consistent weight and thickness, while exhibiting different properties in terms of tensile strength and air permeability, with Fabric C having the highest tensile strength and the lowest air permeability value.

The features of Curcuma longa fibre, obtained with the decortication process, exhibited suitability for textile applications. Three experimental non-woven fabrics comprising different compositions of Curcuma longa fibre and low-melt polyester fibre were produced. The tensile strength and air permeability properties of these fabrics were influenced by the composition of the fibres.

This paper aims to produce sustainable sport-hijab or veiling using cotton and bamboo as renewable and eco-material blending with polyester. Due to the unique characteristics of the knitting fabrics, the research focused on constructing the proposed samples using a circular knitting technique with a French terry structure, to achieve comfort, ease of care, good appearance and sustainability in different climatic conditions.

The researchers formed three different knitted samples using yarn count 30/1Ne for cotton and bamboo and 70 dens for polyester yarn, using the same blending ratio of 50:50% (cotton/polyester, bamboo/ polyester and cotton/ bamboo). They tested several mechanical and physical properties (weight, thickness, air permeability, water permeability, electrostatic charges, ultraviolet protection factor, stiffness, pilling resistance and bursting strength).

Using different tools, the researchers statistically analyzed the influence of variables on sample properties, including a Chart line, ANOVA test at p-value = 0.05 and the least significant differences values to identify the effect significantly as well as demonstrate the interaction among the samples at each tested property. Finally, radar chart areas to clarify the preferable sample performance.

The findings declared that blending materials used significantly affected most properties of the produced samples, except for the water permeability and an electrostatic charge. Furthermore, the findings pointed out that blending (cotton or bamboo/polyester) is more efficient and desirable than blending (cotton/ bamboo). Additionally, based on radar charts analysis, the cotton/polyester knitted outperforms other blended materials samples in producing sport-hijab or veiling fabric.

Predicting student performance is crucial in educational settings to identify and support students who may need additional help or resources. Understanding and predicting student performance is essential for educators to provide targeted support and guidance to students. By analyzing various factors like attendance, study habits, grades, and participation, teachers can gain insights into each student’s academic progress. This information helps them tailor their teaching methods to meet the individual needs of students, ensuring a more personalized and effective learning experience. By identifying patterns and trends in student performance, educators can intervene early to address any challenges and help students acrhieve their full potential. However, the complexity of human behavior and learning patterns makes it difficult to accurately forecast how a student will perform. Additionally, the availability and quality of data can vary, impacting the accuracy of predictions. Despite these obstacles, continuous improvement in data collection methods and the development of more robust predictive models can help address these challenges and enhance the accuracy and effectiveness of student performance predictions. However, the scalability of the existing models to different educational settings and student populations can be a hurdle. Ensuring that the models are adaptable and effective across diverse environments is crucial for their widespread use and impact. To implement a student’s performance-based learning recommendation scheme for predicting the student’s capabilities and suggesting better materials like papers, books, videos, and hyperlinks according to their needs. It enhances the performance of higher education.

Thus, a predictive approach for student achievement is presented using deep learning. At the beginning, the data is accumulated from the standard database. Next, the collected data undergoes a stage where features are carefully selected using the Modified Red Deer Algorithm (MRDA). After that, the selected features are given to the Deep Ensemble Networks (DEnsNet), in which techniques such as Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), Deep Conditional Random Field (DCRF), and Residual Long Short-Term Memory (Res-LSTM) are utilized for predicting the student performance. In this case, the parameters within the DEnsNet network are finely tuned by the MRDA algorithm. Finally, the results from the DEnsNet network are obtained using a superior method that delivers the final prediction outcome. Following that, the Adaptive Generative Adversarial Network (AGAN) is introduced for recommender systems, with these parameters optimally selected using the MRDA algorithm. Lastly, the method for predicting student performance is evaluated numerically and compared to traditional methods to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

The accuracy of the developed model is 7.66%, 9.91%, 5.3%, and 3.53% more than HHO-DEnsNet, ROA-DEnsNet, GTO-DEnsNet, and AOA-DEnsNet for dataset-1, and 7.18%, 7.54%, 5.43% and 3% enhanced than HHO-DEnsNet, ROA-DEnsNet, GTO-DEnsNet, and AOA-DEnsNet for dataset-2.

The developed model recommends the appropriate learning materials within a short period to improve student’s learning ability.

This study builds on the practice-based view of strategy to examine whether the three most commonly prescribed strategic planning best practices – scanning, communication openness and participative decision-making – actually strengthen the planning-performance relationship.

The study uses objective performance data and data from a survey of 159 managers from 43 publicly listed US firms to test the hypothesized moderation effects of best practices. The analysis uses hierarchical regression.

At high levels of planning, firms high in participative decision-making and low in openness and scanning outperform firms low in participation and high in openness and scanning. The results reverse at low levels of planning.

This is a cross-sectional study with a small sample. The response rate was modest; hence, the results should be treated as exploratory. Since the sample is not random, the results may not be generalizable.

While managers may find a best practice label helpful, the best practices implemented within a firm need to fit existing planning processes in order to increase planning effectiveness.

While academic scholarship sometimes struggles with generating actionable prescriptions for improving strategic planning, recommendations by practitioners lack empirical backing. This study builds on the practice-based view of strategy to bridge this gap. These results are consistent with both academic and practitioner literature on strategic planning in finding that the best practices of scanning, openness and participative decision-making strengthen the planning-performance relationship at different planning levels, possibly by underpinning the firm’s dynamic capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers to implementing lean construction in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) construction industry and to prioritise the principal factors that constitute these barriers.

A literature review was initially used to reveal the global barriers to implementing lean construction. Subsequently, these barriers were incorporated into a structured questionnaire, and a convenience sample of 282 construction professionals in the KSA construction industry was surveyed. The results were analysed using mean item score (MIS), Mann–Whitney U test and principal component analysis (PCA).

The findings revealed 22 barriers to lean construction implementation in the KSA construction industry. Principal factors that constitute these barriers were found to be traditional practices, client related, technological, performance and knowledge and cost-related barriers in descending order of pervasiveness. The study also proposes solutions to overcome these principal barriers.

This study provides a global overview of the barriers to implementing lean construction. It contributes to the body of knowledge, as it uncovers for the first time the barriers to implementing lean construction in the KSA construction industry with reference to the socio-cultural, economic and operational context of the KSA. Thus, it is relevant to other countries in the Middle East because of their shared similarities to the KSA. Furthermore, the solutions proposed to overcome these barriers in the KSA construction industry can be applied in other countries where similar barriers are identified.

The purpose of the paper was to assess the functional properties vegetable gourds & the validated health claims so as to help the future researchers to locate the gaps. However, emphasizing on the scientifically available reports was required to make information available in a nutshell to the health-conscious consumers, as well as the researcher from the area of functional foods and nutrition.

The paper is a mini-review of scientific findings in different studies on gourd vegetables. The approach to information collection was finding the research gaps and potential areas for future work with a nutritional perspective.

Ash gourd, bitter gourd and bottle gourd have been extensively studied, and several health benefits and functional components have been reported, while ridge gourd, snake gourd and pointed gourd have been sparsely studied for their therapeutic benefits and the validation thereof; hence, there lies a scope for researchers.

The scarcity of scientific reports compared to the traditional usage and folkloric beliefs was a limitation.

Understanding the nutritional potential of gourd vegetables from scientific reports may influence both the work areas and consumers in the appropriate direction.

Planning is a perennially popular management tool with an ambiguous relationship to learning and performance. The purpose of this study attempts to resolve this ambiguity. The authors suggest that the critical question is not whether firms need learning for planning to influence performance, but when different firms experience different performance outcomes. The authors propose firms will benefit from strategic planning only when they learn from planning and have the resources to act on their learning.

The authors collected data from a survey of 293 individuals from 191 publicly listed US firms.

Organizational learning mediates the relations between strategic planning and organizational performance. This mediated relationship is positively moderated by high levels of human resource slack and moderate to high levels of financial slack.

The study provides evidence for previous theoretical arguments on the planning–learning relationship while extending this research by finding a complicated moderating effect of slack. The study also adds to the existing debate on optimal slack levels by suggesting that having bundles of slack resources may matter more than having uniformly high or low levels of slack. A cross-sectional study means the authors cannot infer causation.

While strategic planning is a common practice, companies may vary in their planning methodologies, influencing the outcomes of planning. Firms seeking to benefit from planning need to have both the mechanisms to learn from planning and slack to deploy these mechanisms.

These findings clarify the planning–learning–performance relationship while challenging the assumption of an average effect of planning on performance across firms.

This chapter focuses to study the aspect of dynamic profitability of the Indian computer industry in the post tariff rationalization period, i.e., complete elimination of tariff on imported computers parts and component after implementation of Information Technology Agreement (ITA) in 2004. If trade liberalization affects profitability, then it also interrupts the firm's financial structure because a firm reduces its short-run debts when it generates huge profit. On the contrary, higher marginal return or profitability of asset encourages the debtor to invest more. In fact, trade liberalization may affect investment through marginal profitability of asset by varying projected sales and costs of imported inputs, i.e., by altering the imported input price. This study examines the viable relationship between dynamic profitability and directives of the ITA. The sample selected from 51 Indian computer firms (14 hardware firms and 37 software firms) level data ranging from 2000–2001 to 2018–2019 and by application of dynamic panel data, the results are analyzed in this research work. This chapter observes that return on asset is negatively significant with the ratio between short-term liability and total liability for both the software and hardware sector of Indian computer industry in post-ITA policy timeline.

This paper aims to evaluate the current level of knowledge about lean construction (LC) practices in construction companies, universities and class organizations in Brazil and identify the barriers to implementing LC in the Brazilian construction industry and prioritize them through comparison with global challenges.

This multiple case study was carried out through a questionnaire answered by 56 construction companies, 15 universities and 10 professional associations. The questionnaire evaluation allowed the authors to determine the level of knowledge about the LC, its adoption and barriers to its adoption in the Brazilian industry. The results were statistically analyzed using the weighted average (MIS) of results using the Kruskal–Wallis test, which compares sample distribution among groups, and Cronbach’s alpha test to measure the questionnaire reliability.

This study points to universities as the main ones responsible for the low adoption of LC in Brazil and points to the need for an integrated action among construction companies, universities and class organizations to overcome the traditional project management culture and raise the level of knowledge about LC.

This study evaluated the current LC situation in an emerging country, Brazil, and compared it with the principal international challenges observed in studies of other developing countries – China, India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Singapore – least developed countries – Bangladesh and Nigeria – and developed country – UK. These studies evaluated construction companies located in the listed countries. Based on that, 22 international challenges were established for the LC adoption. Additionally, this research also evaluated universities and working-class organizations in addition to construction companies. This addition can contribute to a better result understanding that can be explored by Brazil and other countries.