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This study examines how the introduction of mobile money transfers, while making it efficient and convenient to access funds, has affected rural households’ savings behavior and the banking sector.

This study utilizes Fiji’s most recent agricultural census data to model the agricultural household’s saving decision. The study estimates an probit model to examine rural households' savings behavior. Furthermore, it utilizes time series secondary data to examine how funds transfer has been channeled to rural households in Fiji.

Firstly, the results demonstrate that with the mobile money transfer platform launch, the banking sector has lost substantial money previously used to pass through its system, thus losing service fees and interest income. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that those using mobile wallet platforms to receive money are more likely not to have a savings account with the bank. Noting the cultural systems and social settings of the native households and the ease of payments via the mobile platform, they tend to spend more on consumption rather than saving, thus making these households more vulnerable during shocks such as natural disasters.

While mobile money transfer is hailed as a revolution, no research has yet picked up the downside to it, that of undermining the very effort by policymakers to get low-income rural households to save. Secondly, this study also highlights how mobile money transfer deprives the banking system of a significant transfer fee income and a source of funds to pool and lend to earn interest income. Furthermore, this study brings to the forefront a dichotomy about how a rural indigenous community sees the welfare and prosperity of their community much differently than what economics textbooks portray.

Amidst a substantial body of research investigating gender discrimination within formal employment sectors, this study concentrates on a critical yet frequently overlooked dimension: the non-formal agriculture sector. It aims to elucidate how prevailing male prejudices and entrenched social constructs systematically disadvantage female household heads in their quest for household food security.

This study investigates food security status and statistical disparities between female-headed and male-headed households utilizing data from 63,601 farming households. By identifying the factors contributing to gender-based discrimination, we empirically evaluate their impact on households’ food security by applying the discrete choice ordered logit model.

The results demonstrate significantly higher levels of food insecurity among female-headed households than their male counterparts (p < 0.05). It empirically establishes that factors contributing to discrimination adversely affect female farmers’ ability to secure food. These factors include challenges in accessing markets, smaller farm sizes and receiving less government assistance than male farmers.

While previous studies have acknowledged gender discrimination, this research is the first to systematically demonstrate how various factors directly impact food security in female-headed households in Fiji, thereby addressing a critical gap in the literature. Focusing specifically on the intersection of gender discrimination and food security, this study provides robust empirical evidence of the profound influence of gender discrimination and male biases on the food security of these households, thereby making a significant and original contribution to the field and underlining the importance of this research.

Education is highly regarded as having a central influence on individuals' understanding and backing of democracy, but whether this occurs in young and small democratic states remain unknown. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether schooling and education have a positive impact on an individual's democratic values in Fiji, whose democratic system has been subject to three coups since independence in 1970.

To achieve the goal of this paper, the ordered probit probability model is used. The ordered probit model serves as a better framework for statistical analysis whenever field survey responses are ordinal as distinct from numerical.

The results from an ordered probit model reveal that the education level does not affect an individual's democratic values. However, it is found that gender, age, and ethnicity do have an influence on individuals' endorsement of democracy.

Democracy has more than once proved to be an elusive dream in Fiji. This paper aims to provide the answer whether education can be the facilitating factor in transition towards a more democratic state.

This is the first study which comprehensively explores whether schooling and education has a positive impact on an individual's democratic values in Fiji.

Driven by higher profit incentives, banks’ marketing strategies have tended increasingly to exclude sections of the retail market on socio‐economic lines. Ironically, these strategies are now seen to have profitability and social responsibility implications. Little previous attempt has been made to quantify the relationship between bank service access and the determinants that act as deterrents, to improve general understanding of the extent of exclusionary influence of each determinant and the relevant implications. This study examines quantified relationships using the Probit model and data collected through primary research from a developing economy in the Asia Pacific region. Results show that bank‐driven pricing strategies may have an overriding effect on other factors. The analysis demonstrates that profits may be increased, socio‐economic exclusionary effects reduced and social image improved by voluntarily reconsidering pricing and other bank‐driven exclusionary strategies.

Many investigations are going on in monitoring, contact tracing, predicting and diagnosing the COVID-19 disease and many virologists are urgently seeking to create a vaccine as early as possible. Even though there is no specific treatment for the pandemic disease, the world is now struggling to control the spread by implementing the lockdown worldwide and giving awareness to the people to wear masks and use sanitizers. The new technologies, including the Internet of things (IoT), are gaining global attention towards the increasing technical support in health-care systems, particularly in predicting, detecting, preventing and monitoring of most of the infectious diseases. Similarly, it also helps in fighting against COVID-19 by monitoring, contract tracing and detecting the COVID-19 pandemic by connection with the IoT-based smart solutions. IoT is the interconnected Web of smart devices, sensors, actuators and data, which are collected in the raw form and transmitted through the internet. The purpose of this paper is to propose the concept to detect and monitor the asymptotic patients using IoT-based sensors.

In recent days, the surge of the COVID-19 contagion has infected all over the world and it has ruined our day-to-day life. The extraordinary eruption of this pandemic virus placed the World Health Organization (WHO) in a hazardous position. The impact of this contagious virus and scarcity among the people has forced the world to get into complete lockdown, as the number of laboratory-confirmed cases is increasing in millions all over the world as per the records of the government.

COVID-19 patients are either symptomatic or asymptotic. Symptomatic patients have symptoms such as fever, cough and difficulty in breathing. But patients are also asymptotic, which is very difficult to detect and monitor by isolating them.

Asymptotic patients are very hazardous because without knowing that they are infected, they might spread the infection to others, also asymptotic patients might be having very serious lung damage. So, earlier prediction and monitoring of asymptotic patients are mandatory to save their life and prevent them from spreading.

There is a continuous drive in automotive sector to shift from conventional lubricants to environmental friendly ones without adversely affecting critical tribological performance parameters. Because of their favorable tribological properties, chemically modified vegetable oils such as palm trimethylolpropane ester (TMP) are one of the potential candidates for the said role. To prove the suitability of TMP for applications involving boundary-lubrication regime such as cam/tappet interface of direct acting valve train system, a logical step forward is to investigate their compatibility with conventional lubricant additives.

In this study, extreme pressure and tribological characteristics of TMP, formulated with glycerol mono-oleate (GMO), molybdenum dithiocarbamate (MoDTC) and zinc dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP), has been investigated using four-ball wear tester and valve train test rig. For comparison, additive-free and formulated versions of polyalphaolefin (PAO) were used as reference. Moreover, various surface characterization techniques were deployed to investigate mechanisms responsible for a particular tribological behavior.

In additive-free form, TMP demonstrated better extreme pressure characteristics compared to PAO and lubricant additives which are actually optimized for conventional base-oils such as PAO, are also proved to be compatible with TMP to some extent, especially ZDDP. During cylinder head tests, additive-free TMP proved to be more effective compared to PAO in reducing friction of cam/tappet interface, but opposite behavior was seen when formulated lubricants were used. Therefore, there is a need to synthesize specialized friction modifiers, anti-wear and extreme pressure additives for TMP before using it as engine lubricant base-oil.

In this study, additive-free and formulated versions of bio-lubricant are tested for cam/tappet interface of direct acting valve train system of commercial passenger car diesel engine for the very test time. Another important aspect of this research was comparison of important tribological performance parameters (friction torque, wear, rotational speed of tappet) of TMP-based lubricants with conventional lubricant base oil, that is, PAO and its formulated version.

Food security emerges when all people always have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. The availability of food, access to food, and absorption of food are three key aspects of food security. Considering the above, the initial goal in this chapter is to measure annual growth rate and compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of production of food grains, nutri coarse cereals, total pulses, and nine oilseeds for the period 2011–2021 in India. To estimate per capita availability of Food Grains, Nutri Coarse Cereals, Total Pulses and Nine Oilseeds (in kg) represents the food security in India. The highest production is recorded in between 2011 and 2021 for food grains (315.72), followed by the production of nine oil seeds (36.7), total pulses (27.69), and nutri coarse cereals (26.42). In 2016, the annual growth rate for food grains and nine oilseeds was 9.37 and 23.88%, respectively. It is very evident that the availability per capita has grown from 2011 to 2021. The per capita availability of food grains increased from 206.17 kg in 2011 to 224.30 kg in 2021. The per capita availability of total pulses increased from 13.59 kg in 2011 to 19.67 kg in 2021. The per capita availability of nine oil seeds increased from 23.70 kg in 2011 to 26.78 kg in 2021 which indicates India has managed food security successfully in the last decade.

The present paper reflects the gradual change in the need and use of the marketing concepts in libraries and information centres (LICs) and its fruitful effects in the service to the library users, and studies marketing of information products/services in LICs of R&D institutions of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) of India. The paper discusses the role of these LICs including marketing approach, need and application of a marketing program with the help of a survey. For the survey, data were collected through a detailed mailed questionnaire along with interviews. The findings reveal that librarians have a positive attitude towards the different aspects of marketing of a library's information products/services. The study recommends that currently efforts for increasing user‐awareness and separate financial support are requisite for efficient marketing. Instead of scattered approaches and different styles, a coherent view must be taken.

This study aims to develop a taxonomy of organizations according to business process orientation (BPO) maturity and investigate the difference between clusters in terms of performance outcome.

A survey of various organizations in Indonesia is conducted. The main variables are critical practices (CPs) as the measurement variables of BPO maturity and performance outcome. Cluster analysis is performed to obtain an empirical taxonomy of the organizations. ANOVA test is used to test if there are statistically different performance outcomes across different clusters.

Cluster analysis resulted in six archetypes labeled according to their characteristics: Beginners, Non-technical, Domestics, IT laggards, Excellers, and Champions. The ANOVA test results show that the archetypes with high CPs tend to have high perceived performance results.

This study is limited because the authors use a single dataset from organizations in Indonesia. Further study involving more organizations will be beneficial to validate and enrich the taxonomy of organizational archetypes.

Results of the study can be used as a benchmarking tool by organizations to identify their positions against other organizations and set their areas for improvement. It can also help them identify a roadmap for improvement that will benefit their organization.

Using the CPs as a measure of BPO enables the authors to identify supplier orientation and information and technology (IT) implementation as the primary differentiators within the taxonomy. The use of IT differentiates the bottom, middle and top clusters.

This study attempts to recognize obstacles and barriers to financial inclusion in the agriculture sector, propose a framework based on the inter-contextual link between the barriers and understand the financial exclusion in the agriculture sector at the grassroots level. Previously published research articles were used to identify the barriers to financial inclusion, followed by informal interviews and collaborative discussions with the local farmers of the Sonipat district of Haryana and expert interviews using a structured questionnaire. TISM and MICMAC analysis are used to decern the nature of the relationship among the barriers discovered. The authors find that inadequate financial literacy, a shortage of financial awareness and the reluctance of various financial institutions are significant linkage barriers to strong driving and dependence power. High transaction costs and poor infrastructural support are the independent barriers. The paper identifies these new barriers to financial inclusion in the Indian agriculture sector and the framework depicting financial exclusion in India. This paper only gives a framework of barriers and does not quantify the effect of any relationship identified, but strongly emphasizes granting the Indian agriculture sector broad and simple financial access to advance and strengthen the nation's sustainable, inclusive economic growth.