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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extract of Moringa stenopetala seed oil, by organic solvents (methanol and hexane), for its efficacy against microbial activity on cotton fabrics. The selected microbes for the study were two types of bacteria which are Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli).

Two types of bacteria, Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli) were used. The extract was applied on fabrics at a concentration of 5, 10 and 15 g/L using the pad-dry-cure method and antibacterial activities verified by the bacterial-growth reduction method. The treated fabrics were evaluated for antimicrobial activity against the bacteria before and after 15 washing cycles. The extract was examined for molecular structural change using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and physical properties of the fabric; tensile strength, elongation, air permeability, stiffness and wettability were evaluated.

Results showed treated fabrics reduces the growth of Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli) bacteria from 77.6%–100% before wash and 45.8%–85.2% after wash for both extract concentrations. Comparing extracts, hexane extract reduces all bacteria growth than methanol extract for both extract concentrations while S. aureus was more susceptible to antimicrobial agents than E. coli at a lower concentration. As result, the tensile strength and air permeability were relatively lower than untreated ones without affecting the comfort properties of the fabric.

This study indicates that the Moringa stenopetala seed oil extract has a strong antimicrobial activity.

The Home Grown School Feeding and Health Programme (HGSHP) in Nigeria provides primary school pupils across the country with one meal daily. The purpose of this paper is to standardize the HGSHP meals in Osun State and determine the energy, protein and mineral contribution to the school children's daily nutrient intake.

All the HGSHP meals served school children were studied. Questionnaire, standardization of recipe and chemical analysis were employed to evaluate the HGSHP meals and to suggest improvement.

All the meals were cooked. Dishes composed of a mixture of a legume (cowpea) commonly called beans, a cereal (maize or rice) or tuber (yam) taken with a soup or stew and fish or egg. The bean meals were high in protein and carbohydrate. All the dishes had very low zinc content and did not meet 30 per cent of the school children's daily zinc requirements.

This paper may be the first to evaluate the nutritional contribution of school meals in Nigeria.

This research aims to elucidate the interplay between implementing digital strategies, adopting big data analytics–artificial intelligence (BDAAI), and business process innovation, with a particular emphasis on assessing the moderating impact of digital culture. This article explores how big data analytics can provide organizations with the tools and resources to utilize their data assets effectively, fostering novel and innovative processes.

The research employed a questionnaire-based approach to collect data from managers in Pakistan’s telecom sector. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS and AMOS software. The measurement model’s suitability was assessed via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using AMOS.

Preliminary results indicate a correlation between these critical factors: digital strategy prioritization, big data analytics incorporation and digital culture cultivation. The study results confirm the effect of digital strategy on business process innovation and support the positive mediating role of the adoption of BDAAI and the moderating role of digital culture.

The research offers insights but is limited to Pakistan’s telecom industry. Digital strategy is crucial for innovation amid digital transformation, with BDAAI enhancing process innovation. The digital culture in telecom will drive industry digitalization through BDAAI in business innovation.

Leveraging artificial intelligence within a digital culture context could be a productive tool for improving business processes. This research represents a novel exploration of the intersection between digital strategy, BDAAI and digital culture within the context of the telecommunications industry.

The purpose of the article is (1) to find out whether students instructed with Computer-Assisted Simulation Learning Games (CASLGs) will improve in their scholarly learning outcomes and (2) to ascertain if the biological construct of sex will affect students scholarly learning outcomes.

The study was experimental. The study sample comprised 120 students from four schools. The study instrument was the Scholarly Learning Outcomes Test (SLOT), drawn from the school syllabus. The study lasted six weeks. Before the experimentation, the students were pre-tested using the Scholarly Learning Outcomes Test (SLOT. After which, students were posttested to ascertain students' scholarly learning outcomes. The statistical mean was employed to analyse data generated from the pretest and posttest to provide answers for the research questions, while analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) statistics was utilised to test the hypotheses.

The results show that CASLGs improved students' scholarly learning outcomes more than the face-to-face instructional approach and the biological construct of sex is of no effect on students' scholarly learning outcomes.

First, in performing the study, the regular instructors/teachers were utilized. The personalities of these instructors were not considered or scrutinized; this might have impacted the research outcomes.

Implications for future studies: One advantage is that it is part of a bigger initiative in which there are extra sources of data to study. This information or data from this study would help to throw further light on the predictors of student scholarly learning outcomes in the near future. One implication of this study rests on the confirmation that activity-based strategies such as CASLGs enhance students' scholarly learning outcomes.

This study is a product of the author’s doctoral thesis. It is the outcome of the investigation carried out by the author for the award of PhD; therefore, it is original. The study’s results are of immense value because they contributed to knowledge in the area of computer-based learning games.

It is considered a mystery by many people that, despite charging significantly higher fees when compared to public institutions, research has shown an increase in the demand and enrolments at private higher education institutions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the critical factors considered by students when deciding to make private higher education institutions their institution of choice.

The study uses a case study approach and draws data from all the six private higher education institutions in Zimbabwe. Self-administered questionnaires were given to students representing at least 5 per cent of the student enrolment and representing all gender, study disciplines and levels of study from each university.

Irrespective of gender, six main factors influencing student choice were identified to be, in order of priority: access and opportunity; promotional information and marketing; reference or influence by others; quality of teaching and learning; fees and cost structure, and finally academic reputation and recognition.

The research was focused on a case study of Zimbabwe.

The study has implications on the way private higher education institutions market, manage and sustain the quality of educational provision. The study therefore provides private institutions with useful and practical insights on what students want in their institution of choice. This will assist these institutions in strategising in order to sustain or gain competitive advantage and to maximise on the increasing demand for private education. Implications to government and public institutions are also given.

The study recognises the critical role played by private universities in improving access and recommends African Governments who face financial and resource constraints to fund and expand public universities to encourage private higher education as a meaningful and viable way to improve access and provide higher education opportunities to potential students.

The study contributes to the current dearth of literature on factors influencing student choice to study with private institutions.

This study aims to investigate the critical role of Curriculum Integration (CI) in higher education, addressing global concerns about university graduates’ readiness for the workforce. It explores the perspectives of undergraduates, academics and employers on CI across Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe and Australia.

Using a mixed-method approach, the research combines quantitative surveys with qualitative interviews to comprehensively analyze CI’s impact. Data analysis involved SPSS and thematic methods, ensuring validity through triangulation, member checking, pilot testing and sensitivity analysis. Ethical considerations included informed consent and confidentiality.

The study uncovers significant regional disparities in CI awareness and implementation, particularly between developed and developing regions. While CI’s benefits for holistic learning are widely acknowledged, few academics actively use it, citing barriers like time, funding and institutional resistance. Employers strongly support CI, highlighting its value in enhancing graduate employability skills, though regional differences demand localized approaches. Undergraduates prefer CI for its interactive, practical nature. The findings call for targeted faculty development and regional strategies to increase CI adoption, ultimately improving graduate employability.

This global study provides a replicable framework for evaluating interdisciplinary educational reforms. By comparing CI’s impact across diverse systems, it offers a model applicable to other pedagogical approaches, notably project-based or competency-based education, underscoring the importance of region-specific strategies in educational reforms.

Bioconcrete is widely believed to be environmentally beneficial over conventional concrete. However, the process of bioconcrete production involves several steps, such as waste recovery and treatment, that potentially present significant environmental impacts. Existing life-cycle assessments of bioconcrete are limited in the inventory and impact analysis; therefore, they do not consider all the steps involved in concrete production and the corresponding impacts. The purpose of this study is to extensively study the cradle-to-gate environmental impacts of all the production stages of two most common bioconcrete types (i.e. sludge-based bioconcrete and cement kiln dust-rice husk ash (CKD-RHA) bioconcrete) as opposed to conventional concrete.

A cradle-to-gate life-cycle assessment process model is implemented to systematically analyze and quantify the resources consumed and the environmental impacts caused by the production of bioconcrete as opposed to the production of conventional concrete. The impacts analyzed in this assessment include global warming potential, ozone depletion potential, eutrophication, acidification, ecotoxicity, smog, fossil fuel use, human toxicity, particulate air and water consumption.

The results indicated that sludge-based bioconcrete had higher levels of global warming potential, eutrophication, acidification, ecotoxicity, fossil fuel use, human toxicity and particulate air than both conventional concrete and CKD-RHA bioconcrete.

The contribution of this study to the state of knowledge is that it sheds light on the hidden impacts of bioconcrete. The contribution to the state of practice is that the results of this study inform the bioconcrete production designers about the production processes with the highest impact.

This study examined the roles of public spending and population moderating characteristic structure of selected African economies on bank-based financial development through credit to private sector.

The study sampled 37 selected African economies for the years 1991–2018, and it applied a pooled mean group (PMG) estimator to account for short-run and long-run causal effects, and confirmed short-run adjustments towards the long-run convergences between the variables. Specific suitable tests were also applied.

Evidence confirms positive impacts of both capital formation and final consumption expenditures on financial development in the short run and long run. The moderation of population structures on expenditure structures help to speed up convergences.

This work attests its innovation by accounting for the separate effects of the expenditure types, the moderation effects of young and mature populations for capital and final consumption expenditure on financial development among selected economies in Africa.

This study aims to provide comprehensive models that investigate the combination of both external fundamentals and internal characteristics on firm performance and if there is any difference between Shariah and non-Shariah compliant firms. The objective of this paper therefore is to analyze the significant relation between external fundamentals, internal characteristics and firm performance.

Panel data regression analyses are applied to determine significant results. It helps to control for unobserved factors of firm heterogeneity, which may result in spurious regression.

Most internal firm characteristics are found to be significant, but the same cannot be said for external fundamentals. Firm size is found to be very significant in driving both sets of firm performances. Financial distress in term of higher level of leverage is found to be a negative driver of non-Shariah-compliant firms’ performance in terms of return on asset but not for Shariah firms consistent with Islamic finance understanding. Shariah-compliant firms with higher liquidity tend to perform much better than less liquid firms, but the same is not found for non-Shariah-compliant ones.

This study is limited to the industrial production sector and compares both Shariah and non-Shariah compliant firms.

This study adds new findings to clarify the roles of external macroeconomic fundamentals and internal characteristics determinants on firm performance. Findings from this study combine relevant information on different sets of determinants on firm performance and produce empirical evidence beneficial to both sets of Shariah and non-Shariah compliant firms in the industry.

This paper fulfills the need for firms to understand the external and internal environment for continuous survival and performance. It is therefore important for firms to recognize the possible factors which may influence their performance and mechanisms to sustain their performance for long-term survival.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the difference in students’ preferences on weekly menu of school mid-day meal (MDM) program in Uttar Pradesh, India.

The study is based on primary structured questionnaire survey through personal interviews using multi-stage stratified sampling technique. This comprehensive survey covered 2,400 primary and upper primary students belonging to eight districts of Uttar Pradesh – Allahabad, Balrampur, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Hathras, Kanpur Nagar, Mathura, Shahjahanpur and Varanasi. A total of 60 schools have been selected from each district, covering a total of 480 primary and upper primary schools. Simple statistical tools have been used to analyze the surveyed data such as cross-tabulation, percentage distribution and rank analysis. Further, six research hypotheses have been formulated to analyze the difference in school meal menu preferences among the students and χ2-statistics has been used to test the significance level of these hypotheses.

Survey results indicate that more than 90 percent students eat MDM in the school as per the weekly menu. Result of χ2-test indicates that choices on school meal menu among the students differ significantly across weekdays. Rice-pulses or rice-sambar served on Tuesday is reported to be the first preferred food of children given first preference by around 30 percent, followed by kadi-rice or kheer which is served on Wednesday. The results of χ2-tests exhibited a significant difference on weekly menu choices by gender, kitchen types, rural and urban locations and geographical regions. About 27 percent of the students reported that they want to have a change in the menu. When further probed about the kind of changes desired in the menu, puri-vegetables was found to be the most preferred choice of the respondents, beside halwa/kheer and rice with pulses/vegetables/kadi being the next preferred choices.

The present study provides managerial implications to the policy makers and scheme/program implementers for better understanding of the students’ preferences on school MDM weekly menu.

There are several evaluation studies undertaken by various agencies to assess the impact of MDM program on school attendance, retention and nutritional status of children. However, there are limited numbers of studies available, which have measured the students’ preferences on school MDM menu.