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The study aims to empirically evaluate the effect of internal factors of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on their financing choices. It also examines the financing practices of listed SMEs in India and finds out whether the financing patterns of listed SMEs follow the established theories of corporate finance.

For this study, 113 SMEs listed on National Stock Exchange Emerge Platform are considered for the period from 2014 to 2018. Panel data regression is applied. The control group has been identified by using the propensity score matching approach. Qualitative information has been collected from the bank officials and the promoters of listed SMEs.

The study reveals that for meeting financial requirements, listed SMEs initially create current liabilities followed by usage of total reserves. Thereafter, they look for short- and long-term borrowings for further funding options. No significant change is observed in the financing pattern of listed SMEs as compared to their non-listed matched firms. The study suggests that no single theory, including pecking order theory or trade-off theory, could explain the behaviour of SMEs financing completely.

The financing pattern of SMEs can be of great interest to various stakeholders such as government and lenders. As no significant boost is observed in debt financing post listing, this aspect needs to be evaluated by the stakeholders.

This study is significantly different from the existing studies, as it attempts to evaluate the impact of listing on overall financing pattern of SMEs in India. This is also one of the very few studies that uses both quantitative and qualitative information to examine the same.

The widespread uptake of digital technology tools for online teaching and learning reached its peak during the nationwide lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. It transformed the higher education institutions (HEIs) marketplace both in developed and developing countries. However, in this process of digital transformation, several HEIs, specifically from developing countries, faced major challenges. That threatened to affect their sustainability and performance. In this vein, this study conducts a bibliometric review to map the challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest strategies for HEIs to cope with post-pandemic situations in the future.

This comprehensive review encompasses 343 papers published between 2020 and 2023, employing a systematic approach that combines bibliometrics and content analysis to thoroughly evaluate the articles.

The investigation revealed a lack of published work addressing the specific challenges faced by the faculty members affecting their well-being. The study underscores the importance of e-learning technology adoption for higher education sustainability by compelling both students and teachers to rely heavily on social media platforms to maintain social presence and facilitate remote learning. The reduced interpersonal interaction during the pandemic has had negative consequences for academic engagement and professional advancement for both educators and students.

This has implications for policymakers and the management of HEIs, as it may prove useful in reenvisioning and redesigning future curricula. The paper concludes by developing a sustainable learning framework using a blended approach. Additionally, we also provide directions for future research to scholars.

This study has implications for policymakers and HEI management to rethink the delivery of future courses with a focus on education and institute sustainability. Finally, the research also proposes a hybrid learning framework for sustainability and forms a robust foundation for scholars in future research.

Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party made fighting corruption as a major election plank, and won the 2014 elections, and formed the National Democratic Alliance government – a majority party government in India in nearly 30 years. Modi was re-elected in May 2019 with a bigger majority. As his government celebrates the second term, it is time to assess the last five years’ accomplishments in fighting corruption. This chapter deals with the subject under four major headings. The first examines the efficacy of existing anti-corruption agencies. The second explains the office of Lokpal (Ombudsman). The third analyses the initial challenges and efforts of the Modi government. The fourth draws some conclusions.

The purpose of this study is to propose a financial distress prediction (FDP) model and method suitable for listed Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

A three-part screening criteria similar to Platt and Platt (2006) was tested independently and jointly on Indian SMEs using statistically significant financial variables. Five stepwise multiple discriminant analysis (MDA) models were developed and the best-performing model was further compared against seminal models to check for robustness.

Model C2 developed under Criterion C which stated “if net income before special items is negative in any given year the firm is considered as ‘unwell’” proved robust and effective.

The proposed model identifies the importance of profitability and efficiency ratios over leverage ratios in determining financial distress and therefore, has implications for SME owners/managers and shareholders.

Recent technological advancements, often linked to Industry 4.0, require organizations to be more agile and innovative. Blockchain technology (BT) holds immense potential in driving organizations to achieve efficiency and transparency in supply chains. However, there exist some insurmountable challenges associated with the adoption of BT in organizational supply chains (SC). This paper attempts to categorically identify and systematize the most influential challenges in the implementation of BT in SC.

This study resorts to an extensive literature review and consultations with experts in the field of supply chain management (SCM), information technology and academia to identify, categorize and prioritize the major challenges using VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) and Combined Compromise Solution method (CoCoSo).

The top three classes of challenges revealed in this study are privacy challenges (PC), infrastructure challenges (IC) and transparency challenges (TC). Maintaining a balance between data openness and secrecy and rectification of incorrect/erroneous input are the top two challenges in the PC category, integration of BT with sustainable practices and ensuring legitimacy are the top two challenges in the IC category, and proper and correct information sharing in organizations was the top most challenge in the TC category.

Future scholars and industry professionals will be guided by the importance of the challenges identified in this study to develop an economical and logical approach for integrating BT to increase the efficiency and outcome of supply chains across several industrial sectors.

This study aims to review the content of academic libraries’ websites with specific reference to the general information, services, information resources, features and functionalities, instructional tools to support teaching, learning and research for the patrons and users, and the visibility or activeness of the navigational tools on the websites.

The study focused on six categories of tertiary institutions: public universities, technical universities, chartered private universities, university colleges, colleges of education and nursing and midwifery schools. From each category, the researchers purposively selected five different institutions with library websites. Thus, 30 library websites were reviewed and analyzed for this study.

The review disclosed a generally low content and information on the websites in terms of the availability of information resources and collections; the types of services available at the libraries via the websites; the features and functionalities of the websites; the instructional tools to support teaching, learning and research for the patrons and users; and the visibility or activeness of the navigational tools on the websites. Despite this, the public universities displayed more and above average information, services, information resources, instructional tools and navigational tools on their library websites, followed by the technical universities, chartered private universities and university colleges. Conversely, the colleges of education and nursing and midwifery schools were to a large extent unable to provide information relating to electronic resources, instructional tools and navigational tools.

The study was limited to 30 library websites from all six categories of tertiary institutions in Ghana. From the study, the management of the universities and the libraries must appreciate the significant role of websites in providing information and resources in support of teaching, research and learning at the institutions. In this regard, they need to provide the necessary support and resources for the effective deployment and operationalization of websites.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first of its kind as no study seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the content of academic libraries’ websites with specific reference to the general information, services, information resources, features, functionalities, instructional tools to support teaching, learning and research for the patrons and users, and the visibility or activeness of the navigational tools on the websites.

Any node in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) can act as a host or router at any time and so, the nodes in the MANET are vulnerable to many types of attacks. Sybil attack is one of the harmful attacks in the MANET, which produces fake identities similar to legitimate nodes in the network. It is a serious threat to the MANET when a malicious node uses the fake identities to enter the network illegally.

A MANET is an independent collection of mobile nodes that form a temporary or arbitrary network without any fixed infrastructure. The nodes in the MANET lack centralized administration to manage the network and change their links to other devices frequently.

So for securing a MANET, an approach based on biometric authentication can be used. The multimodal biometric technology has been providing some more potential solutions for the user to be able to devise an authentication in MANETs of high security.

The Sybil detection approach, which is based on the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) variations, permits the node to be able to verify the authenticity of communicating nodes in accordance with their localizations.

As the MANET node suffers from a low level of memory and power of computation, there is a novel technique of feature extraction that is proposed for the multimodal biometrics that makes use of palm prints that are based on a charge-coupled device and fingerprints, along with the features that are fused.

This paper proposes an RSSI-based multimodal biometric solution to detect Sybil attack in MANETs.

The results of the experiment have indicated that this method has achieved a performance which is better compared to that of the other methods.

This paper aims to critically review the isolation and chemistry of plant pigments.

A literature survey from 1974 to 2022 was carried out and studied thoroughly. The authors reviewed literature in various areas such as isolation methods and catalytic properties of pigments.

With vast growing research in the field of catalytic activities of various pigments like chlorophyll, anthocyanin and flavonoids, there is still scope for further research for the pigments such as Lycopene, carotenoids and xanthophyll as there has not been any significant work in this area.

Plant pigments may be used as an ecofriendly catalyst for chemical reactions.

One can get the direction of pigment research.

Plant pigments are natural and ecofriendly catalyst which can reduce the pollution.

This is an original work. This paper precisely depicts the advantages as well as disadvantages of the isolation techniques of pigments. This study also presents the chemistry of plant pigments.