Search results

This paper aims to elaborate in a greater detail about how to manage and eventually help resolve outstanding issues, including the core issue of Kashmir between nuclear India and Pakistan. In doing so, this paper elaborates various innovative measures that could be applicable to South Asian nuclear environment that in turn could assist the South Asian nuclear leadership in understanding and managing the fragility of South Asian nuclear deterrence.

Innovatively, this research paper looks at the South Asian nuclear issues at three levels of analysis – understanding the prevailing dynamics of nuclear revolution and improved means of communications and promoting deterrence stability in South Asia. All three levels may be more needed than ever before in the wake of the arrival of nuclear weapons for a broader Southern Asian region.

This paper finds out that although nuclear weapons have become a reality in South Asia and these deadly weapons have prevented major wars between India and Pakistan, nuclear weapons have not prevented the crises between India and Pakistan. Therefore, both India and Pakistan have confronted a number of crises. The paper finds out that any serious crisis between India and Pakistan could further undermine the credibility of existing confidence-building measures and the same could escalate from military to nuclear level. Absent from immediate measures undertaken by the South Asian security leadership, nuclear weapons may not help prevent the war between India and Pakistan at the sub-conventional level, this paper finds out.

By explaining innovative measures at the three level of analysis, this papers adds to the existing literature in understanding the behavior of South Asian security leadership and how these measures could best bring positive results in preventing a major crisis that potentially bears the risk of escalation to nuclear level.

This study aims to deal with the numerical investigation of ferrofluid flow and heat transfer inside a right-angle triangular cavity in the presence of a magnetic field. The vertical wall is partially heated, whereas other walls are kept cold. The effects of thermal radiation are included in the analysis. The governing equations including continuity, momentum and energy equations are converted to nondimensional form using viable variables.

Finite element method (FEM)-based simulations are performed using finite element approach to investigate the effects of the volume fraction of ferroparticles (Fe₃O₄), the length of the heating element and the dimensionless numbers including Rayleigh and Hartmann numbers on the streamlines, isotherms and Nusselt number.

It is demonstrated that both horizontal and vertical velocity components increase with the length of the heating element, whereas the dimensionless temperature decreases the heating domain. It is observed that an increase of 10% in the volume fraction of ferroparticles increases Nusselt number more than 12%, and 20% increase in the volume fraction of ferroparticles increases more than 30%, depending upon the length of the heating element.

This is a new study showing the significance of the magnetic nanoparticles for the enhancement of heat transfer rate in a triangular cavity.

Several studies focus on asymmetric impact of shocks on conventional stocks. However, only few studies explore Islamic stocks, but none has examined the asymmetric impact of shocks on Islamic stocks. This study aims to fill the gap by investigating the asymmetric impact of shocks on Islamic stocks. Specifically, it identifies the effect of good and bad news on Islamic stock market. The study also aims to examine the returns and volatility spillover effects across different Islamic markets.

To carry out the empirical analysis, the authors have applied the exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) model on daily Islamic stock indices of 18 countries. The study covers the period from July 2009 to July 2016. The authors have started their empirical analysis by examining the time series properties and testing the presence of ARCH effects. Further, the authors have applied several post-estimation tests to ensure the robustness of the results.

The results indicate that there is significant leverage effect in Islamic stocks traded in the sampled countries. That is, negative shocks or bad news have stronger effects on Islamic stock returns’ volatility as compared to positive shocks or good news. The authors also found that there are significant mean spillover effects for the examined countries. This finding implies that increased Islamic stock returns in country have significant and positive effects in Islamic stocks’ returns in another other. Similarly, the results regarding the volatility spillover effects suggest that there are significant volatility spillover effects across all examined countries. However, the authors found both positive and negative volatility spillover effects. It should also be noted that in some cases, the authors did not find any significant volatility spillover effect.

The findings of this study have several important policy implications for both investors and policymakers. As the findings suggest that Islamic stock indices are integrated across countries both in terms of returns (mean) and risk (volatility), they are useful for investors to design well-diversified portfolios. The significant volatility spillovers suggest policymakers to design such policy that may help in reducing the adverse effects of increased volatility of Islamic stock of other/foreign countries on the Islamic stocks of the home countries. The significant evidence of the presence of leverage (asymmetric) effects suggest investors to use effective and active hedging instruments to hedge risk, particularly, in bad times.

Unlike other studies on Islamic stocks, this study takes into account the asymmetric effects of positive and negative shocks. Further, the study examines the mean and variance spillover effects for a large panel of countries having Islamic stocks. Finally, several pre- and post-estimation tests are applied to ensure the robustness of the results.

Economic globalization is leading large companies to focus on international strategic management. Nowadays, the assets referred to as “corporate intangibles,” such as corporate reputation, are becoming increasingly important because they are considered a key factor for the viability of an organization, and companies therefore need to incorporate them into their scorecards for management. The problem is that their measurement is subjective and latent. These two characteristics impede direct international comparison and require demonstrating the accuracy of comparison via a minimum of two tests – construct equivalence and metric equivalence. As regards corporate reputation, construct equivalence was verified by Naomi Gardberg (2006). However, the subsequent studies did not address metric equivalence. Based on the results of a survey provided by the Reputation Institute (n = 5,950, 50 firms evaluated in 17 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia), the degree of RepTrak metric equivalence has been tested, using two different methodologies, multigroup analysis (structural equation model), and a new technique from 2016, the Measurement Invariance of Composite Model procedure from the Partial Least Square Path Modeling family. As one would expect from other cross-cultural studies, reputation metrics do not meet the full metric equivalence, which is why they require standardization processes to ensure international comparability. Both methodologies have identified the same correction parameters, which have allowed validation of the mean and variance of response style by country.

The concept of smart city has been adopted by various cities across the world. As urbanization is enlarging at a flying pace, the number of cities that engage the smart city concept is to rise, including in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This chapter discusses issues related to the development of (Islamic) smart cities in the GCC countries to create sustainable well-being through ecological and environmental resilience. This issue starts from the conflict between economic and human development on the one hand and ecological and environmental resilience on the other hand as one of the fundamental challenges of sustainable development. The higher the Human Development Index (HDI),, the higher the ecological footprint. Likewise, in the GCC region, all member countries are classified as Very High Human Development; however, all of these countries have a high ecological footprint. Therefore, through a literature study, this chapter focuses on investigating the development of (Islamic) smart cities in the GCC countries in reducing ecological footprints through a circular economy innovation with the support of technology and a digitally-enabled community in creating ecological and environmental resilience. This chapter provides valuable insight into the implementation of the (Islamic) smart cities in the GCC region in taking a global strategic role in green transition through the circular economy to transform their region toward sustainable well-being and become a symbol of sustainable smart global Islamic civilization.

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and fake news detection. It also intended to explore the negative effects of fake news on society and to find out trending techniques for fake news detection.

“Preferred Reporting Items for the Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” were applied as a research methodology for conducting the study. Twenty-five peer-reviewed, most relevant core studies were included to carry out a systematic literature review.

Findings illustrated that AI has a strong positive relationship with the detection of fake news. The study displayed that fake news caused emotional problems, threats to important institutions of the state and a bad impact on culture. Results of the study also revealed that big data analytics, fact-checking websites, automatic detection tools and digital literacy proved fruitful in identifying fake news.

The study offers theoretical implications for the researchers to further explore the area of AI in relation to fake news detection. It also provides managerial implications for educationists, IT experts and policymakers. This study is an important benchmark to control the generation and dissemination of fake news on social media platforms.

The emergence of smart cities, metropolises that integrate physical infrastructure, digital technology, and data analytics, and that focus on urban sustainability, have profoundly changed urban development. In the modern digital era, robust infrastructure has become an indispensable catalyst for urban advancement. Kuwait is dedicated to the integration of diverse renewable energy technologies in the development of smart cities that enhance energy security, promote innovation, and contribute to global climate change mitigation efforts. Focusing on smart cities within Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, a review is presented of how successfully they have effectively combined technology, infrastructure, and sustainability to serve as models for new global and regional developments. Insights into what makes a city smart are provided in different settings.

This study attempts to come in help for Morocco by investigating rigorously the linkage between environmental degradation, measured by ecological footprint (EF), and the gross domestic product growth (EG), the human capital (HC) index and the natural resources (NR) depletion over the period of 1980:Q1 to 2021:Q1. The paper examines the validity of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in the Moroccan context.

Unlike previous studies, which are based only on the autoregressif dynamic linear (ARDL) model, this paper investigates two recent models: the novel DYNARDL simulation approach and the Kernel-based regularized least squares (KRLS) technics and uses in addition the frequency domain causality (FDC) test.

Models output say a significant and negative association between HC and the EF and a significant and positive interplay between economic growth and environmental quality in the long term. In the short term, findings reveal a significant and negative association between NR and the EF. Based on the FDC test, results conclude about a unidirectional causality from NR to the EF in short-, medium-, and long-term. Moreover, results validate the EKC hypothesis for the Moroccan environment sustainability.

In this study, the researchers use the “ecological footprint” as dependent variable to obtain more accurate and comprehensive assessment of environmental deterioration. Based on time series data investigations, this study is the first paper, which validates the EKC hypothesis and develops important policy implications for Morocco context to achieve sustainable development targets.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the latent factorial structure of task performance and to establish its construct validity among academics working at private universities in Pakistan.

Through a cross-sectional research design, purposive sampling and quota sampling were used to allocate a sample of 347 academics from 21 private universities in the Punjab/Islamabad Capital Territory of Pakistan. SPSS 20 and SmartPLS 2.0 software were used to perform exploratory factor and partial least squares analyses on the data.

The presence of two new constructs – student development performance and knowledge development performance – in the task performance of academics was confirmed in the private higher education industry in Pakistan.

This research has extended the theory of task performance of academics conceptually based on the articulated and validated emergence of student development performance and knowledge development performance as two separate constructs.

This research extends the theory of academics’ task performance conceptually, based on the articulation and validation of student development performance and knowledge development performance as two separate constructs. Moreover, the emergence of these two distinct constructs has practical implications in the education industry among Asian and western managers and employees.

A two-factor solution that best fits the data has emerged from the researchers’ observations. This contributes to the taxonomy of research in the domain of academics’ task performance in the private higher education industry in Pakistan.

This study seeks to systematically and practically explore, for the first time, task performance within the context of Pakistan’s private higher education industry. From the data analysis, the researchers were able to identify, establish and label two new latent constructs in academics’ task performance.