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1 – 10 of 16Doaa H. Elgohary, Tamer F. Khalifa, Mona M. Salem, Nermin M. Aly, Elham Hassan and Ashraf A. Shamaa
The purpose of this work is to perform an application study on experimental animals (dogs) to investigate the efficiency of using weft knitted mesh fabric as cardiac support mesh…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this work is to perform an application study on experimental animals (dogs) to investigate the efficiency of using weft knitted mesh fabric as cardiac support mesh to support left ventricular hypertrophy.
Design/methodology/approach
In this work, weft-knitted mesh sample “Knitted Cardiac Support Mesh” manufactured using Nylon (6, 6) yarns, with count 20 Denier and medium mesh size, was placed around the two ventricles to prevent further dilatation, support and reduce left ventricular wall stress.
Findings
Medical textile is a rapidly expanding field in technical textiles that are widely used in a variety of medical applications. One of these medical textile applications is “Knitted Cardiac Support Mesh”, which is used in the treatment of Dilated Cardiomyopathy.
Originality/value
After the implantation of the manufactured Knitted Cardiac Support Mesh around the myocardium, all dogs survived for three months before being euthanized, and some clinical examinations were performed to investigate and evaluate the sample performance. It was demonstrated from the experimental application, that the nylon mesh sample performed the best during the surgical operation due to its good ability to stretch and recover at a moderate rate, as well as the textile mesh lightweight.
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HamidReza Khankeh, Mehrdad Farrokhi, Mohammad Saatchi, Mohammad Pourebrahimi, Juliet Roudini, Amin Rahmatali Khazaee, Mariye Jenabi Ghods, Elham Sepahvand, Maryam Ranjbar and Mohammadjavad Hosseinabadi-Farahani
This study aims to review the results of relevant studies to shed light on social trust-building in different contexts and the factors that affect it in disaster risk management.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to review the results of relevant studies to shed light on social trust-building in different contexts and the factors that affect it in disaster risk management.
Design/methodology/approach
This systematic review was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses model. The study keywords were searched for in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases on August 2021. The inclusion criteria were English-written articles published in social trust and disaster relief efforts. Exclusion criteria were lack of access to the full text and article types such as nonoriginal articles.
Findings
Out of 1,359 articles found, 17 articles were included in the final analysis using four general categories: six articles on the role of local government in trust-building (local governments), five articles on the role of social media in trust-building (social media), four articles on the role of social capital in trust-building (social capital) and two articles on the importance of community participation in trust-building (community participation).
Originality/value
Understanding the role of social trust and the factors which influence it will help the development of community-based disaster risk management. Therefore, disaster management organizations and other relief agencies should take the findings of this study into account, as they can help guide policymaking and the adoption of strategies to improve public trust and participation in comprehensive disaster risk management. Further studies recommended understanding people’s experiences and perceptions of social trust, relief and disaster preparedness.
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Ali Safari, Reza Salehzadeh and Elham Ghaziasgar
Organizational democracy is the new model of organizational design for a Democratic Age, and out of this new model grows a freedom-centered and healthy climate. Democratic…
Abstract
Purpose
Organizational democracy is the new model of organizational design for a Democratic Age, and out of this new model grows a freedom-centered and healthy climate. Democratic management is a key to greater organization success and a necessity to gain higher levels of performance and innovation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents and consequences of organizational democracy in an Iranian context.
Design/methodology/approach
Statistical population includes the employees of the Gas Company of Isfahan Province. For data analysis, 263 accurate completed questionnaires are used. Structural equation modeling is applied to investigate the relationship between the research variables.
Findings
The findings showed that some types of organizational culture (i.e. self-criticism, team, and participatory culture) (β=0.33); and some dimensions of organizational structure (i.e. decentralization, flat hierarchy, and less formalization) (β=0.55) as antecedent variables have a significant direct effect on organizational democracy. Also, organizational democracy has a significant direct effect on human resources outcomes consist of organizational commitment, self-efficacy, and improving work relationships (β=0.64); and organizational outcomes consist of organizational learning and organizational agility (β=0.96).
Originality/value
Despite years of encouragement from consultants and theorists, managers have generally shown little interest toward democratic process as a system of decision making and management in organizations. This study proposes a comprehensive model for identifying the antecedents and consequences of organizational democracy. Most studies in this field are theoretical rather than empirical. But, in this research, the proposed relationships are examined empirically.
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Heba Atef El-Akhras, Marwa Ali Abd El-Wahab, Elham Gharib Saghier and Kareem M. Selem
Despite ChatGPT usage advantages to complete assignments as quickly as possible with detailed information, its adoption risks are crucial factors that may significantly influence…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite ChatGPT usage advantages to complete assignments as quickly as possible with detailed information, its adoption risks are crucial factors that may significantly influence student outcomes, like creative skills and achievement levels. Hence, this paper examines the potential effects of ChatGPT adoption risks on students’ cognitive achievement, underpinned by perceived risk theory (PRT). Further, this paper examines the mediating role of creative thinking levels among hospitality college students.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employed a quantitative approach to collect data. Using an online survey, simple random sampling was employed to ensure bias. Hence, 267 faculty members at tourism and hospitality colleges affiliated with Egyptian public universities responded, and their responses were tested using SmartPLS v.4.
Findings
Creative thinking partially mediated five potential risks of students’ ChatGPT adoption effects on their cognitive achievement. More specifically, psychological risks of ChatGPT adoption among students are considered one of the most likely to reduce their levels of creative thinking and their ability to achieve achievement.
Practical implications
This paper provides insights for policymakers aimed at enhancing higher education quality in tourism and hospitality colleges. Accordingly, this paper concludes by highlighting the importance of addressing ChatGPT adoption’s psychological risks, integrating strategies to promote creative thinking among students and fostering responsible artificial intelligence usage in higher education.
Originality/value
This paper underscores the critical role of faculty members in navigating and mitigating these risks, fostering a more conducive learning environment for responsible ChatGPT usage.
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Elham Amirizadeh and Reza Boostani
The aim of this study is to propose a deep neural network (DNN) method that uses side information to improve clustering results for big datasets; also, the authors show that…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to propose a deep neural network (DNN) method that uses side information to improve clustering results for big datasets; also, the authors show that applying this information improves the performance of clustering and also increase the speed of the network training convergence.
Design/methodology/approach
In data mining, semisupervised learning is an interesting approach because good performance can be achieved with a small subset of labeled data; one reason is that the data labeling is expensive, and semisupervised learning does not need all labels. One type of semisupervised learning is constrained clustering; this type of learning does not use class labels for clustering. Instead, it uses information of some pairs of instances (side information), and these instances maybe are in the same cluster (must-link [ML]) or in different clusters (cannot-link [CL]). Constrained clustering was studied extensively; however, little works have focused on constrained clustering for big datasets. In this paper, the authors have presented a constrained clustering for big datasets, and the method uses a DNN. The authors inject the constraints (ML and CL) to this DNN to promote the clustering performance and call it constrained deep embedded clustering (CDEC). In this manner, an autoencoder was implemented to elicit informative low dimensional features in the latent space and then retrain the encoder network using a proposed Kullback–Leibler divergence objective function, which captures the constraints in order to cluster the projected samples. The proposed CDEC has been compared with the adversarial autoencoder, constrained 1-spectral clustering and autoencoder + k-means was applied to the known MNIST, Reuters-10k and USPS datasets, and their performance were assessed in terms of clustering accuracy. Empirical results confirmed the statistical superiority of CDEC in terms of clustering accuracy to the counterparts.
Findings
First of all, this is the first DNN-constrained clustering that uses side information to improve the performance of clustering without using labels in big datasets with high dimension. Second, the author defined a formula to inject side information to the DNN. Third, the proposed method improves clustering performance and network convergence speed.
Originality/value
Little works have focused on constrained clustering for big datasets; also, the studies in DNNs for clustering, with specific loss function that simultaneously extract features and clustering the data, are rare. The method improves the performance of big data clustering without using labels, and it is important because the data labeling is expensive and time-consuming, especially for big datasets.
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The study aims to investigate the effect of Islamic religiosity on green purchase intention. The environmental dimension of spiritual well-being (i.e. environmental well-being…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to investigate the effect of Islamic religiosity on green purchase intention. The environmental dimension of spiritual well-being (i.e. environmental well-being) was analyzed as a mediator and green skepticism as a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
The millennial generation was considered for data collection, and their preference toward green food was investigated by using a questionnaire. The responses were analyzed by using AMOS.
Findings
The results highlighted that Islamic religiosity significantly effects the green food purchase intention of the millennial generation. This relation is positively mediated by the environmental dimension of spiritual well-being (i.e. environmental well-being). Moreover, the green skepticism weakens the relationship between Islamic religiosity and green purchase intention.
Research limitations/implications
The main emphasis of this research was on the millennial generation, and only their selection criteria for green food were considered. Moreover, the study has only considered the environmental dimension of spiritual well-being (i.e. environmental well-being) and ignored the other dimensions, including transcendental and personal/communal well-being. Therefore, future studies can focus on these dimensions while highlighting the purchase behavior toward other green or eco-friendly products.
Practical implications
The research has discussed the broader areas, and it can help marketers, religious scholars, farmers and managers to make efficient strategies for the millennial generation. The researchers focusing on green consumer behavior and sustainable issues can consider this study as a guideline for investigating the Muslim millennial generation’s behavior.
Originality/value
The study is to investigate the effect Islamic religiosity on green purchase intention. It has focused on all sustainable aspects, including green well-being, green skepticism to analyze the green purchase intention of millennial generation.
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Azadeh Ranjbar Nedamani, Elham Ranjbar Nedamani and Azadeh Salimi
Human health is strongly affected by diet. By the increased use of food industries products, public knowledge about health factors and side effects of chemical additives, the…
Abstract
Purpose
Human health is strongly affected by diet. By the increased use of food industries products, public knowledge about health factors and side effects of chemical additives, the concepts of human health founded an important aspect during past years, and application of natural-based ingredients such as coloring, flavoring, texturizing and anti-oxidative agents was increased.
Design/methodology/approach
The aim of the present paper is to review the published scientific research studies about lycopene health benefits in different human disease or disorders and bold the necessity of study the health effects of lycopene after its formulation in food industrial products. About 190 papers were searched in Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science databases and 72 relevant papers were used. It was found that in medical studies, the lycopene oleoresin or powder is used directly to the subjects. However, it is necessary to study the effectiveness of lycopene in diet food products.
Findings
According to the literature, it has beneficial effects on cancers, glands, reproductive system, bone, gastric system, liver and fat reduction in the body. Also, it was concluded from the literature that lycopene oxidative cleavages make also its chemo protective effects which is a lost key element to study different food processing on lycopene products or its isomers in final food products and on human health.
Originality/value
Many ingredients in food formulations are substituted by natural products. Lycopene is a colorant but also, according to the literature, has a strong antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effect to reduce the risk of most important human disease and disorders. Future research in food science can emphasize the effect of different unit operations or formulations on lycopene effects on human health.
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Elham Abbas Aljaaly and Nahlaa Abduwahab Khalifa
Continuous integration of health screens to investigate and track variations in the students’ healthiness over time is essential. However, the sustainability of this practice…
Abstract
Purpose
Continuous integration of health screens to investigate and track variations in the students’ healthiness over time is essential. However, the sustainability of this practice remains challenging. The purpose of this paper is to identify the prevalence of anaemia based on haemoglobin (Hb) estimation among Saudi school girls in Jeddah city by examining capillary and venous blood.
Design/methodology/approach
The design is investigative, using primary data to define the prevalence of anaemia based on two techniques. Samples of venous (n=408) and capillary (n=797) blood from Saudi school girls in Jeddah city was collected and compared using: Reflotron Plus System method (capillary blood) and ABX MICROS 60-OT Automated Haematology Analyser for (venous blood).
Findings
When the capillary blood was used, the prevalence of anaemia was 40 per cent (n=319 out of 797). Using the venous blood, the prevalence was 29.4 per cent (n=120 out of 408). Comparison of Hb data for both tests showed a significant difference in Hb levels with levels between the 10g and 12 g/dl particularly and both measurements demonstrated good agreement (ICC=0.87, 95 per cent CI (0.845, 0.892)).
Research limitations/implications
The data were collected only in Jeddah city. Further studies should include a national sample that is representative of both gender from different backgrounds and geographical areas in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Practical implications
The high prevalence of anaemia within the school girls’ population require decision makers to devise a set of maintainable projects to progress students’ general health, including health education and supplementation such as iron, particularly if anaemia is diagnosed to be nutrition-related. This particularly applied to the health centres at female schools that have anaemia screening programmes that going on in Saudi schools.
Originality/value
This study reveals a technique-based measures of anaemia prevalence that have public and practical health implications.
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This chapter demonstrates that women challenge oppressive gender relations by engaging in active agency at different levels. Iranian women’s struggles for gender equality show a…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter demonstrates that women challenge oppressive gender relations by engaging in active agency at different levels. Iranian women’s struggles for gender equality show a critical consciousness of the politics of local male domination and an indigenous contestation of the cultural practices which sanction injustices against women.
Design/methodology/approach
This chapter is based on the findings and analysis of the book, Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century in Iran. It is the result of the political and personal experiences of a number of Iranian women academics, journalist and activists who live and work in Iran.
Findings
Based on the updated findings and new statistical data, this chapter argues that women, despite their high level of education and activism, continue to face gender inequality, in particular in the sphere of employment.
Social implications
This chapter is intended to counter the often inaccurate and misleading impressions put forward by the media, politicians and some academics in the West when they talk about Iranian women. Within the broader feminist theoretical positioning, the aim of this chapter is to contribute to the debate on essentialism and the stereotype of Iranian women as submissive Muslim women without agency.
Originality/value
Feminist knowledge production is diverse. Nonetheless, consideration of the historical and geographical locations of feminist knowledge production is vital to our understanding of the complex processes of women’s liberation. Thus, Iranian women’s voices are important to what is traditionally understood as feminism.
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S.V. Lee, A.N. Hadi, Z.H.Z. Zainal Abidin, N.A. Mazni, N.A. Halim, R. Usop, H.C. Hassan, S.R. Majid and A.K. Arof
The purpose of this paper is to observe the colour and thermal stability of natural red dye consisting of anthocyanin with addition of different aqueous acids and applied as…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to observe the colour and thermal stability of natural red dye consisting of anthocyanin with addition of different aqueous acids and applied as coating films.
Design/methodology/approach
The natural red dye was extracted from Hibiscus sabdariffa L. (roselle) flowers and mixed with 1 per cent hydrochloric acid, 5 per cent acetic acid, 5 per cent citric acid and 5 per cent oxalic acid. All the dye samples were exposed to heat and UV-B to observe the colour stability by calculating the half-life and rate of reaction. In coating film application, each of the dye samples was mixed with 25 wt% of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and applied on to a glass substrate. The coating samples’ colour stability was observed by using CIE L*a*b* colour space coordinates. The coating films’ weight loss stability against temperature was observed by using thermogravimetric analysis.
Findings
Addition of hydrochloric acid enhances the thermal and UV stability of the anthocyanin natural dye. This can be observed from the calculation of the half-life of the dye. The half-life values for the thermal and UV stability studies were 1,155 hours and 210 hours, respectively. In coating films, the sample with addition of acetic acid showed the highest colour stability with colour difference (ΔE*) value 8.95.
Research limitations/implications
The coating films developed in this work are not suitable to be applied on metal substrates due to the presence of water, which can contribute to the corrosion formation.
Practical implications
The coating films developed in this work are suitable for washable coating application. In other words, they are non-permanent coatings applied on a glass substrate.
Originality/value
Development of water-based coatings from PVA binder with anthocyanin colourant is introduced in this study.
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