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This paper examines the enhancement in the properties of thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) reinforced by graphene nanoplates (GNPs). TPE is a blend of polypropylene (PP), natural rubber (NR) and liquid natural rubber (LNR), which is used as a compatibiliser at a percentage of volume ratio 70:10:20, respectively. Using TPE as the host matrix, TPE/GNPs nanocomposites are processed, and the mechanical, electrical and structural properties are characterised. The results extracted from the tensile and the impact tests showed that the tensile strength, Young’s modulus and the impact strength of the nanocomposites also increased as the filler loading increased until an optimum value of filler loading was reached. Based on the experimental results, GNPs strongly affected the electrical conductivity due to disruption of the GNPs percolated network. It is believed that the high aspect ratio of GNPs is a critical issue concerning the constitution of a special interface region between the GNPs and TPE matrix and the high performance of the composites.

The problem of motif discovery has become a significant challenge in the era of big data where there are hundreds of genomes requiring annotations. The importance of motifs has led many researchers to develop different tools and algorithms for finding them. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new algorithm to increase the speed and accuracy of the motif discovering process, which is the main drawback of motif discovery algorithms.

All motifs are sorted in a tree-based indexing structure where each motif is created from a combination of nucleotides: ‘A’, ‘C’, ‘T’ and ‘G’. The full motif can be discovered by extending the search around 4-mer nucleotides in both directions, left and right. Resultant motifs would be identical or degenerated with various lengths.

The developed implementation discovers conserved string motifs in DNA without having prior information about the motifs. Even for a large data set that contains millions of nucleotides and thousands of very long sequences, the entire process is completed in a few seconds.

Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed implementation; as for a real-sequence of 1,270,000 nucleotides spread into 2,000 samples, it takes 5.9 s to complete the overall discovering process when the code ran on an Intel Core i7-6700 @ 3.4 GHz machine and 26.7 s when running on an Intel Xeon x5670 @ 2.93 GHz machine. In addition, the authors have improved computational performance by parallelizing the implementation to run on multi-core machines using the OpenMP framework. The speedup achieved by parallelizing the implementation is scalable and proportional to the number of processors with a high efficiency that is close to 100%.

This study aims to examine the recent literature on health-promoting behavior, health needs and associated factors among older adults.

An massive search of five databases involving documents in the past decade was commenced.

This review showed a significant relationship between older adults’ demographic characteristics (marital status, income, chronic disease, education level and smoking status) and health-promoting behaviors. This review showed that older adults with a high level of education, high income, chronic diseases and smoker and married older adults are associated with better health-promoting behaviors.

The result of the current review supports the Pender Health Promotion Model that individual personal characteristics can affect the level of engagement in health-promoting behaviors. Assessing the health-promoting behaviors of older adults can help in identifying their health needs.

This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of triggers of psychological distress among Jordanian patients with heart failure (HF).

A phenomenological study was adopted. In-depth, semi-structured, audio-taped interviews were conducted for 25 patients with HF. The analysis was done using interpretative phenomenological analysis.

The main theme of the findings can be expressed as “faced with stressors that are unable to cope with”, which encompasses circumstances and contexts associated with the psychological distress they faced. The following four sub-themes emerged from the data: being endorsed in significant life changes, feeling guilty about being a burden, financial burden aggravating stress and feeling overwhelmed by the fear of death.

The findings revealed that psychological distress is affected directly by many triggers. The findings indicate the need for informing health-care providers to support these patients and address the challenges and develop clinical guidelines to assess psychological distress among these patients.

Second-order system-dynamics engineering (SOSDE) involves constructing and running enterprise manufacturing simulation models with new proposals for operational processes, byproducts, supply chain and/or downstream marketing designs. This paper aims to describe sustainability the principal lessons from enacting SOSDE research for achieving goals in large manufacturing firms.

This study is a case research commentary in the agricultural industry that contributes abductively derives six principal lessons from SOSDE research on introducing sustainability-focused manufacturing and product innovations. Operational processes in large-scale poultry processing plants in an emerging market represent the specific industry and firm domain of this case study. Alternative SOSDE simulation models of decisions, materials flow and outcomes with versus without operational innovations were constructed following one-to-one interviews with experienced farm managers and entrepreneurs.

The principles demonstrate how large farms in a developing nation (i.e. Bangladesh) go about adopting radically innovative manufacturing, supply chain and marketing operations to improve traditional operations. This study confirms and expands on the general observation that SOSDE can help achieve sustainability and environmental, social and governance goals, contribute new value outcomes by converting unused production wastes into valuable byproducts and introduce design efficiencies in production, supply chain and marketing processes. SOSDE complements, while being a revolutionary departure from, “six sigma management programs” that focus on achieving exceptional and near mistake-free manufacturing operations. Both represent distinct philosophies and sets of actions that sometimes can conflict with one another. Embracing both successfully in the same enterprise is a goal that may appear unreachable, seemingly impossible to achieve and yet represents a manufacturing/marketing epitome that is observable in exceptional enterprises.

This paper may generate controversy as well as advance interest in applying SOSDE in introductions of improved manufacturing, supply chain and marketing operations aiming to accomplish radical improvements in sustainability goals.

This commentary describes how using SOSDE and running alternative production simulations with versus without including superior, radically new, process innovations enable the firm to find and eliminate glitches in system changes and reduce the fear associating with breakdowns and financial losses due to inadequate knowledge of operating new industrial procedures and outcomes.

Introductions of superior radically new innovations in industrial manufacturing and marketing via SOSDE frequently include manufacturing firms embracing new environment sustainability objectives and additional marketable byproducts from the firm's main productions lines. This commentary offers details on how this process is enacted in poultry manufacturing in an economically emerging nation.

Running simulations in SOSDE research offers a low-cost, fast and in-depth method to test “what-if” impacts of enhanced and radical innovations into product/service manufacturing operations – benefits supporting the recommendation to apply systems dynamics in business and industrial marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the current status of e-government services in Afghanistan. To identify the evaluation criteria based on citizen satisfaction from e-government services, the proposed government-to-citizen (G2C) evaluation model is considered in the context of Afghanistan.

A conceptual G2C evaluation model and e-government evaluation model are proposed. The criteria used for the G2C evaluation model is based on the demand and supply side, which have an immense effect on citizen satisfaction. The mixed research method (quantitative and qualitative) is used, and quantitative data analysis results are supported through qualitative data analysis.

The findings reveal that citizen satisfaction from e-government services in Afghanistan are affected by services availability on multiple channels, citizen-centric features, paralingual support, process performance, skills divide, awareness, information security and transaction security.

Yet to be addressed, three criteria deemed as significant factors are recommended to be included in the model, namely, government readiness, system quality (usability, service quality and information quality) for supply side and social divide for demand side. These three criteria can help in proposing a successful G2C evaluation model. Additionally, the quantitative data used in this study were collected through paper-based questionnaires. Data collection through Internet can help to get responses from various parts of the country for future evaluation of G2C services.

The key findings of this study are vitally important for e-government strategies and policy makers to design and disseminate appropriate e-government services to Afghan citizens. The proposed evaluation model can also be used as a guideline for e-government development in Afghanistan.

A conceptual model for e-government services evaluation approach is proposed based on literature review. The proposed G2C evaluation model identifies and validates key factors and criteria in the context of Afghanistan.

Most of the previous studies agree about the significance of user satisfaction in ensuring the endurance of information systems (ISs). Accordingly, it is crucial to investigate the effect of e-Government systems on individual end-user satisfaction as more and more countries adopt and deploy such Government Financial Management Information Systems (GFMIS) in the era of digital transformation. Because of this, the purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that contribute to the success of GFMIS in Jordan and ultimately the satisfaction of its users.

The IS success model developed by DeLone and McLean (2003) serves as the theoretical underpinning for the current research. Adding training quality as a new variable to the proposed model has been found to further increase the satisfaction of GFMIS users. A total of 104 GFMIS users in Jordan provided the data used to verify the model. The partial least squares-structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical findings indicated that GFMIS user satisfaction is significantly affected by information quality, service quality and perceived usefulness; meanwhile, system quality is only partially supported. The research also showed that the level of satisfaction among Jordanian GFMIS users was related to the quality of training they received.

This study fills a crucial literature gap by developing a research model that can help improve GFMIS usage towards attaining greater performance amongst government agencies in Jordan.

Abusive supervision (AS) provides insights into the darker aspects of leadership behavior and its effects on employees. Understanding and addressing AS can contribute to creating healthier work environments and promoting employee well-being. The effect of abusive leadership (AS) on counterproductive work behaviors (CWB) in nursing staff is examined through the theoretical lens of the social exchange theory.

Data were collected from 302 nursing staff working at public and private hospitals through a self-administered questionnaire. Measurement scales were adapted from the literature and the data were tested for validity and reliability before performing hypotheses testing through structural equation modeling in SmartPLS 4.0.

AS positively affects CWB, and psychological contract breach mediates this relationship. However, employees with high Islamic work ethics (IWE) are less concerned with supervisors' dysfunctional behaviors and pay less attention to them; thus, IWE buffers the effect of AS on CWBs.

A positive and supportive organizational climate is crucial for attracting and retaining skilled healthcare professionals. When healthcare professionals are subjected to abusive behaviors, their ability to share knowledge, adopt safety protocols and provide the best patient care may be hampered. Therefore, addressing AS in hospitals is vital to promoting a positive work environment, enhancing employee well-being and improving patient care.

This study aims to determine the attitudes of Turkish consumers toward Islamic mobile shopping apps and discuss whether these apps will need to be designed in accordance with Islamic rules in Muslim countries or not in the sample of Turkey.

A descriptive study was used. The data was collected online through a questionnaire form. The one-sample t-test and univariate analysis of variance were used to analyze the data obtained from 379 individuals.

The results show that Turkish customers have mostly positive attitudes toward Islamic mobile shopping apps and demand that the pictures, videos and advertisements used on mobile shopping apps be in concordance with Islamic rules. As a result of this study, consumers do not mind the colors or lean toward the use of models on Islamic mobile shopping apps. Furthermore, there are differences between gender with regard to using Islamic mobile shopping apps, showing that male consumers have a more positive attitude toward Islamic mobile shopping apps compared with female consumers.

Like many previous empirical studies, this study has limited its context to capture a particular geographical area. Moreover, in this study, the data are obtained by judgmental sampling as a nonrandom sampling method. The contributions of the current study are restricted to Islamic mobile apps for the hijab clothing sector in Turkey.

The results obtained can become a yardstick to measure consumer attitudes toward Islamic mobile apps’ attributes.

The primary benefit is to call the attention of mobile app designers to the design features of mobile shopping apps aimed at Muslim users. The second benefit is to determine the expectations of Muslim users regarding the design of Islamic mobile shopping apps, and eventually establish the fundamental Islamic design features needed to be available on new Islamic mobile shopping apps.