Tony Bush, Mofoluwake Fadare, Tamuka Chirimambowa, Emmanuel Enukorah, Daniel Musa, Hala Nur, Tatenda Nyawo and Maureen Shipota
The purpose of the paper is to report the findings of a synthesis of literature reviews and stakeholder interviews conducted in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to report the findings of a synthesis of literature reviews and stakeholder interviews conducted in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The synthesis provides an overview of instructional leadership policy and practice in these six countries.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reports the findings of a systematic literature review, and participant interviews, in six sub-Sahara African countries. The research links to the British Council's initiative to develop instructional leadership in developing contexts, including the six countries featured in this submission.
Findings
The findings show diverse policy and practice of instructional leadership in these African contexts. Three have no explicit policies on this important leadership construct, while the others have relevant policy statements but limited evidence of instructional leadership practice.
Research limitations/implications
The research provides an overview of instructional leadership policy and practice in these six countries, but more school-based research is required to develop grounded evidence on whether and how this is practiced. The pandemic inhibited such school-based research in 2020. The study provides emerging evidence of the impact of instructional leadership on school and student outcomes, confirming what is known from international research.
Practical implications
Developing awareness of how instructional leadership can improve student learning, linked to appropriate training, could lead to more effective schools.
Social implications
The Sustainable Development Goals stress the importance of high quality education for economic and social development. Leadership is an important aspect of quality, and the research reported in this paper shows the potential for instructional leadership to enhance student learning.
Originality/value
This is the first cross-national study of instructional leadership in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Alaaldeen Al-Halhouli, Hala Qitouqa, Abdallah Alashqar and Jumana Abu-Khalaf
This review paper aims to introduce the inkjet printing as a tool for fabrication of flexible/wearable sensors. It summarizes inkjet printing techniques including various modes of…
Abstract
Purpose
This review paper aims to introduce the inkjet printing as a tool for fabrication of flexible/wearable sensors. It summarizes inkjet printing techniques including various modes of operation, commonly used substrates and inks, commercially available inkjet printers and variables affecting the printing process. More focus is on the drop-on-demand printing mode, a strongly considered printing technique for patterning conductive lines on flexible and stretchable substrates. As inkjet-printed patterns are influenced by various variables related to its conductivity, resistivity, durability and dimensions of printed patterns, the main printing parameters (e.g. printing multilayers, inks sintering, surface treatment, cartridge specifications and printing process parameters) are reported. The embedded approaches of adding electronic components (e.g. surface-mounted and optoelectronic devices) to the stretchable circuit are also included.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, inkjet printing techniques for fabrication of flexible/stretchable circuits will be reviewed. Specifically, the various modes of operation, commonly used substrates and inks and variables affecting the printing process will be presented. Next, examples of inkjet-printed electronic devices will be demonstrated. These devices will be compared to their rigid counterpart in terms of ease of implementation and electrical behavior for wearable sensor applications. Finally, a summary of key findings and future research opportunities will be presented.
Findings
In conclusion, it is evident that the technology of inkjet printing is becoming a competitor to traditional lithography fabrication techniques, as it has the advantage of being low cost and less complex. In particular, this technique has demonstrated great capabilities in the area of flexible/stretchable electronics and sensors. Various inkjet printing methods have been presented with emphasis on their principle of operation and their commercial availability. In addition, the components of a general inkjet printing process have been discussed in details. Several factors affect the resulting printed patterns in terms of conductivity, resistivity, durability and geometry.
Originality/value
The paper focuses on flexible/stretchable optoelectronic devices which could be implemented in stretchable circuits. Furthermore, the importance and challenges related to printing highly conductive and highly stretchable lines, as well as reliable electronic devices, and interfacing them with external circuitry for power transmission, data acquisition and signal conditioning have been highlighted and discussed. Although several fabrication techniques have been recently developed to allow patterning conductive lines on a rubber substrate, the fabrication of fully stretchable wearable sensors remains limited which needs future research in this area for the advancement of wearable sensors.
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Years after the 2011 uprising Egypt, it seems that the country’s non-Islamist parties are still included in the political game. After significant alterations in their political…
Abstract
Purpose
Years after the 2011 uprising Egypt, it seems that the country’s non-Islamist parties are still included in the political game. After significant alterations in their political sphere by mid-2013 at the advent of the Muslim Brother exclusion and the subsequent discrediting of Salafi al-Nour party, non-Islamist parties took clear part in the mobilization for presidential elections (2014, 2018) and competed for legislative seats in 2015. Nonetheless, it is difficult to expect them to turn into long-term key political players with clear-cut ideological postures, unique platforms and strong grass root mobilization. With the exception of the electoral gains scored by numbered parties like Free Egyptians’ party and Nation’s Future in 2015 legislative elections, these parties seem to be lagging behind esp. in terms of their popular base; who became winners at the advent of the radical exclusion of the MB from July 2013 onwards.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on archival research and guided by basic assumptions of rational choice institutionalism, mainly game-theoretic versions of the approach. It is divided into four sections, three of them are chronological and the last one is thematic.
Findings
Egypt’s non-Islamists engaged in the post-2011 political sphere, with strong Islamist rivals crippling their political chances in the first two years following the 2011 uprising. They surely capitalized on the exclusion and discrediting of the latter, but they suffered lack of ideological clarity and fragmentation from 2011 onwards with no enough evidence these weaknesses were surpassed after Islamists were “out of their way”. The only strand of non-Islamist parties which came out as “game winners” were those possessing the resources and enjoying overt “friendly” relations with al-Sisi regime. Nonetheless, internal conflicts inside key secularist parties shed light on their capacity to turn into long-term players in Egypt’s political sphere.
Originality/value
Very few papers were published on Egypt’s secularists parties after the 2011 uprising from the perspective of the alteration that occurred in their political environment affecting their political weight and gains. More generally, literature on non-ruling parties in authoritarian contexts mostly reduce these parties to secondary roles allocated by ruling regimes. The paper seeks to overcome both shortages.
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Umaru Zubairu, Suhaiza Ismail and A.H. Fatima
The moral credibility of accountants has been battered for over two decades because of a seemingly unending series of accounting scandals. The inclusion of ethics education in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The moral credibility of accountants has been battered for over two decades because of a seemingly unending series of accounting scandals. The inclusion of ethics education in the accounting curricula has been advocated as one option through which a new generation of morally competent accountants can be produced. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study that sought to determine the success of this strategy by measuring the moral competencies of 160 final-year Muslim accounting students enrolled in two Islamic-university accounting programs.
Design/methodology/approach
An open-ended, scenario-based, accounting-specific instrument was developed in collaboration with five Islamic accounting scholars to survey and measure the students’ moral competencies from an Islamic perspective.
Findings
The results revealed that the students had glaring weaknesses in their moral competencies, particularly in selecting an Islamically appropriate organization to work for after graduation and the importance of diligence in completing one’s task as an accountant. The implication of these results is that these accounting programs have to critically assess the ethical content of their curricula to ensure that it is capable of developing the moral competencies of these students to an excellent level.
Research limitations/implications
The implication of these results is that these accounting programs have to critically assess the ethical content of their curricula to ensure that it is capable of developing the moral competencies of these students to an excellent level.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the few moral competence studies that consider the source of moral values of the respondents in measuring their moral competencies. Additionally, it provides much-needed insight into the effectiveness of a policy to address a pressing problem in the accounting profession.
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Jarita Duasa, Nurul Jannah Zainan Nazri and Raudlotul Firdaus Fatah Yasin
This study aims to investigate the tendency that Malaysian consumers will choose the recombinant collagen-like protein (RCLP) from bacteria as an alternative source of collagen in…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the tendency that Malaysian consumers will choose the recombinant collagen-like protein (RCLP) from bacteria as an alternative source of collagen in their consumption and the determinants of the consumer acceptance.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative approach is adopted in the study. Descriptive analysis and logistic regression are used to analyze primary data collected from a survey.
Findings
The likelihood of consumers choosing RCLP as an alternative source of collagen is higher among elderly and females. The choice is significantly influenced by the idea that the collagen should support maqasid al-syariah, approved by national Islamic body, should clear on the ingredients used and could boost local economic activities in the future.
Research limitations/implications
An ethical halal policy should be outlined as the guiding principles to the potential producers of RCLP.
Originality/value
An alternative source of collagen using bacteria as proposed is not yet being introduced in Malaysian industry, and the analysis on probability that consumers will accept this new sourced collagen product is using primary data from survey.
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Mohammed Alhaji Mohammed, Kyari Bulama, Audu Alhaji Usman, Mala Ali Modu, Alhaji Modu Bukar, Alhaji Kasir Lawan and Garba Abba Habib
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the psychosocial perception of harmattan dust on building openings, health and housekeeping to determine the influence of the dust on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the psychosocial perception of harmattan dust on building openings, health and housekeeping to determine the influence of the dust on building occupants.
Design/methodology/approach
Population-representative survey data were collected from Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria, through physical administration of questionnaires by assessing several variables. Statistical package SPSS 16.0 was used for the data analysis, which is mainly descriptive analysis in frequencies, percentages and means together with a repeated Pearson’s chi-square analysis to identify the relationship between the factors and the significance testing.
Findings
The results show that majority (94.3%) experienced dust problem in harmattan season, and a larger part (76.6%) confirmed that the dust penetrates through doors and windows. Higher percentage (91.2%) noticed that the dust particles on their floor/furniture surfaces, and on an average, people clean their houses three times daily in harmattan season. Majority (80.5%) of the respondents smell dust in the harmattan season, and greater part (77.9%) experienced health challenges in this season, of which 12.8% confirmed harmattan dust aggravates their asthma, 13.6% confirmed it causes headache, 3.1% confirmed it exacerbated pneumonia, 58.5% confirmed it causes coughing, 3.5% confirmed catarrh, 2.3% confirmed nasal/respiratory congestion, sneezing and bronchitis and 6.2% experienced eye problems. Moreover, the results indicate that number/types of openings in a building are significantly associated with factors including smelling dust in the harmattan season and health problem experienced because of dust indoors. The number of times people clean their homes/workplaces is significantly related to important variables such as experiencing dust problem in harmattan season and number/type of openings in a building. The results further established that the health problem experienced by people is significantly related to important variables including dust problem experienced in the harmattan season and type of openings in a room.
Originality/value
Harmattan dust is a serious challenge to health and well-being of building occupants in the study area. The built environment professionals need to optimize building openings for effective dust control indoors.