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The term “Intelligent Agent” can be understood in many different ways. One notable working Intelligent Agent is the Alert Service offered for the retrieval of international information on public tenders from the database Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) provided by the European Office for Official Publications (EUR‐OP). The system uses predefined client profiles to select the required information from the database and distributes this information the same day by either fax or email using SDI (Selected Dissemination of Information). The predefined client profiles are created by the TED Alert Agent and vary greatly in complexity and structure depending on the information required by the customer. The profile can include searching by geographical, product and legal aspects as well as date, name etc. The service allows the customers a choice of formats for document delivery. Thus the customer receives filtered and very specific information on a chosen topic. The system therefore meets the four tasks of modern information dissemination: you get the “right” information at the right time at the right place and quality.

Despite several policies in the Arab Gulf States aimed at promoting women’s empowerment through employment, women’s career progress has not met the expected gains. Workplace empowerment is a critical aspect of women’s economic empowerment. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the factors that contribute to workplace empowerment for women in the Qatari public sector.

This research uses a mixed-methods approach to explore workplace empowerment among female civil servants in the State of Qatar. The study combines surveys (N = 310) and interviews (N = 30) and uses an inductive thematic approach that considers women’s narratives as the primary source of knowledge construction.

The authors’ findings strongly suggest that perception-related factors have a more significant impact on workplace empowerment than structural ones. The results indicate that feelings of disempowerment are influenced by perceptions of gender-based discrimination, poor relationships with supervisors and dissatisfaction with work–life balance. Women feel empowered when they have access to decision-making opportunities and perceive that their workplace supports their professional growth and advancement.

Although this paper focuses solely on women’s perceptions, additional research is necessary to compare the experiences of both men and women regarding workplace empowerment. While individual and organizational factors were examined in this paper, future studies should also consider societal factors. The results highlight the importance of equal and supportive organizational practices and cultures to foster empowerment among women in the workplace, providing valuable insights for policymakers.

This paper addresses a critical research gap on the intersection of gender, work and management in the Middle East. It responds to the need for more diverse contextual research on Arab women’s work experiences and provides methodological diversity by using an exploratory, mixed-methods design with a grounded approach. The study highlights the interaction between structural and psychological factors, emphasizing the gap between policies and resources and women’s lived experiences and perceptions of workplace empowerment.

This chapter reviews the recent developments at the intersection of personalization and AI in marketing and related fields. We provide a formal definition of personalized policy and review the methodological approaches available for personalization. We discuss scalability, generalizability, and counterfactual validity issues and briefly touch upon advanced methods for online/interactive/dynamic settings. We then summarize the three evaluation approaches for static policies – the Direct method, the Inverse Propensity Score (IPS) estimator, and the Doubly Robust (DR) method. Next, we present a summary of the evaluation approaches for special cases such as continuous actions and dynamic settings. We then summarize the findings on the returns to personalization across various domains, including content recommendation, advertising, and promotions. Next, we discuss the work on the intersection between personalization and welfare. We focus on four of these welfare notions that have been studied in the literature: (1) search costs, (2) privacy, (3) fairness, and (4) polarization. We conclude with a discussion of the remaining challenges and some directions for future research.

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of HEC digital library resources and services in the public sector universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan on the basis of research scholars' satisfaction and its impact on their research progress.

A descriptive survey research method was adopted in order to achieve the objectives of this study. A stratified random sampling technique was used to solicit data from both genders. Research scholars of MS/MPhil and PhD from 14 public sector universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were selected as sampled for this study. A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data and a five-point Likert scale was used to know the purpose and the satisfaction level of respondents with digital library resources. The impact of digital library on research and problems faced by them while using these resources was also measured by using a five-point Likert scale.

The results of this study indicate that near to one-fourth of the respondents used digital library resources two to three times a week for article writing and thesis or dissertation purposes. The study concluded that digital library provides effective resources and services to research scholars and also found a significant impact on their research progress at these universities. However, research scholars were not satisfied with the support of library professionals regarding the use of digital library resources. The study has identified several problems encountered by respondents in the use of digital library resources and services.

The findings of this study and their implications will be helpful for HEC authorities, universities libraries administrators, decision and policy makers and LIS professionals both in Pakistan and in other places. They should benefit from considering the experience of research scholars with digital library resources. This experience can help future subscriptions, training and use of these resources to maximize research scholars' success and achievement in their research activities.

The study is the first of its kind and an important source for knowing the effectiveness of digital library resources on research scholars' progress at Pakistani universities.

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to know the public discovery of the concept of time value of money with economic value of time.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The method of research involved a causal research design in North Sumatera Province, Indonesia. The data used are primary data sourced from questionnaires distributed to 112 random respondents. Data were analyzed using the SEM method with Smart PLS software.

Findings – The results show that the public do not know exactly the application and the concept of “time value of money” and the economic value of time.

Research Limitations/Implications – The limitation of this study is that it was conducted on heterogeneous Medan city samples and did not extend to other cities in North Sumatra with large samples. The study has implications on the socialization of the community’s understanding of the concept of time value of money with the economic value of time.

Originality/Value – This study has value in that it compares the understanding of the society over the concept model of time value of money and the economic value of time.

The purpose of this paper is to draw a map of the general features of epistemological and critical concerns in contemporary Islamic philosophy. This study will not be confined to the domain of academic philosophy or to those who are professionals in the field of philosophy.

The paper adopted the critical rational approach in dealing with contemporary Islamic philosophy in the Arab world. The scope will include scholars from different fields of epistemology who tried to present a “vision” of the attitude that should be adopted in facing the challenges of the age and the problems of the nation on the epistemological level or the political, economic and social levels.

There is a need for a philosophy of action and progress rather than a philosophy that is based on abstract ideas and theories and of words/rhetoric. The ethics required to accomplish this ought to identify the attributes of the citizen who can reach self-actualization through legitimate means based on a progress agenda with theoretical and philosophical foundations.

Because a critical rational approach can be dealt with from different perspectives, this paper will adopt the classification of the principal intellectual trends: the reformist, secular and liberal.

This paper covers a long time span to determine whether the philosophical projects have been effective.

This paper, which criticizes the philosophic projects that are theoretically unsound and that do not address real social problems (like poverty), argues the need for a philosophy of progress and action. This will lead to devising an agenda that addresses the challenges the society is facing and to finding alternative and creative solutions resulting in development.

Disagreement amongst Arab writers, researchers, politicians, and others exists regarding the Arab woman's struggle to take on a leadership role traditionally dominated by Arab men. For many, discussions on whether Arab women should work and lead, be a housewife or work with restrictions are continually under controversy. The purpose of this paper is to examine Arab women leadership style based on transformational, transactional, and laissez‐faire styles of men and women.

The main research instrument is the multifactor leadership questionnaire.

The findings reveal that women in the Arab world exceed men on four transformational scales: the attributes version of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Arab men exceed Arab women on two transactional scales: management by exception passive and management by exception active, whereas women exceed men on contingent rewards. Laissez‐faire leadership style goes to Arab men.

Although the paper provides a useful overview of the traditional thinking and abilities of Arab women leadership and their effectiveness in the Arab world, the sample is limited in size. Further research can be done with larger sample to test the findings.

The paper offers inputs for researchers and writers.

Increased concern about the extensive use of information and communication technology (ICT) has led to widespread research on its effects on employees. This study aims to examine the effect of ICT use and demand on employee-related outcomes, particularly work-life balance, job satisfaction, personal burnout and intention to leave.

The developed model was tested using a survey questionnaire distributed among academics and administrative employees working in the higher education (HE) sector in Qatar. New statistical tools were adopted to analyze the study data (i.e. PLSpredict and partial least squares structural equation modeling for unobserved heterogeneity).

The results confirmed that ICT use affects ICT demand and ICT demand significantly influences employee-related outcomes.

The findings will help HE institutes to carefully examine the negative effect of ICT use and come up with practical ways to avoid such effects.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the rare papers that inspect the negative effect of ICT use in the HE sector. Furthermore, it is the only paper inspecting such relationship in Gulf region.

Considering the crucial role which academic adjustment plays in student success at university, gaining insight into how several factors affect this key metric is important. This empirical study investigated the impact of value conflict upon the academic adjustment of first-year students at Kuwait University.

The data for this study were collected using the survey method from a random sample of 627 first-year university students. The data were analyzed using descriptive and regression statistical methods.

The findings showed that (1) student perceptions regarding the level of value conflict were moderate, with the highest level found in the political domain; (2) student perceptions about the level of academic adjustment were also moderate, with the highest level found in the goal domain; (3) value conflicts are a significant predictor of student academic adjustment, with political value conflicts influencing academic adjustment the most, and (4) value conflict explained 46.5% of the student academic adjustment variation.

These findings imply that college administrations should integrate activities designed to improve student adjustment into co-curricular activities meant for youth development. Relevant recommendations are included.

While significant attention has been given to student academic adjustment in higher education over the last few decades, little attention has been paid to how different factors predict adjustment especially in non-Western cultures such as higher education in Kuwait.