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The role of Technology Transfer Units, examined in this study, was found to be vital to expedite the process of disseminating new varieties and their production technology.

A total of 1,000 households were surveyed in the sampled states. A probit model was used to analyse.

Age, education, land holding, tractor use and number of working family members in agriculture were found to significantly affecting adoption of the new seed varieties. Technology transfer through licensing has impacted the adoption of new seed varieties positively by highlighting Punjab possessing the highest adoption and western Uttar Pradesh was majorly adopting the old variety.

The authors believed in farmers’ memory to recall the varietal information of wheat.

The study recommended various incentives to attract the seed industry in UP to minimize the economic loss potentially suffered by them.

Quality seeds are germane to increase the productivity of crops, and it is paramount to disburse the seed varieties to the end users in an efficient way to achieve the overall objective of productivity enhancement.

In this context, a study was conducted in three states of India, namely, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (UP) to find out the adoption rate of newly developed varieties of wheat, HD 3086 after three years (2014–2015) of its commercialization by IARI as well as HD 2967, which was released in 2011.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of customer switching and the reasons that underlie customer‐switching intentions. The paper aims to focus on the various factors on account of which a customer may or may not switch a particular bank.

A total of 800 bank customers were selected randomly from a total population of 71,600 and were contacted personally to gather the requisite data.

The paper finds that the model reveals significant effect of quality, satisfaction and trust on predicting switching barriers. Of these relationships, satisfaction emerged as the strongest factor which influences switching barriers.

The study is limited to Indian banks; a larger empirical study would be useful to replicate the results in the banking as well as other services.

In order to ensure loyalty among bank customers, increased value addition in the banking services and wide‐ranging relationships with customers can make the switching process more complex.

The preliminary work in this paper demonstrates the impact of various relationship marketing factors, namely, service quality, customer value, satisfaction, trust, commitment, loyalty, switching costs and barriers on customers' switching intentions.

The purpose of the present study, which is part of a larger cross‐cultural study, is to examine two potential antecedents of entrepreneurial intent (EI): proactive personality (PP) and entrepreneurial self‐efficacy (ESE). Specifically, the study is interested in empirically testing the mechanism (mediation/moderation) by which ESE affected the relationship between PP/EI.

For testing the mediation and moderation hypotheses the study used structural equation modeling and moderated regression analyses respectively.

The authors found that PP has a robust relationship with the three different manifestations of EI – general, high growth, and lifestyle. Furthermore, ESE not only mediated the relationship between PP and all the three forms of EI but also moderated the relationship between PP and high growth EI as well as PP and lifestyle EI.

The authors studied intent, not behavior, with the understanding that cognitive intent is a powerful predictor of later behavior. Future research can replicate this study using entrepreneurial behavior instead of intent. Implications for education and future research are discussed.

The results of the study can be used and applied to both pedagogic and business settings in the field of entrepreneurship.

The present study not only provides evidence for the robust relationship between EI and PP but provides insight into the mechanism by which ESE affects EI/PP relationship.

This study aims to investigate the ammonia-sensing performance of polyaniline/polyethylene oxide (PANI/PEO) and polyaniline/polyethylene oxide/zinc oxide (PANI/PEO-ZnO) composite nanofibers at room temperature.

Gas sensor structures were fabricated using microfabrication techniques. First, onto the SiO₂ wafer, gold electrodes were fabricated via thermal evaporation. PANI/PEO nanofibers were produced by the electrospinning method, and the ZnO layer was deposited by using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering on the electrospun nanofibers as a sensing layer. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction were performed to characterize the analysis of nanofibers. After all, gas sensing analysis of PANI/PEO and PANI/PEO/ZnO nanofibers was conducted using an experimental setup at room temperature conditions. Furthermore, the impact of humidity (17%–90% RH) on the sensor resistance was actively investigated.

FTIR analysis confirms the presence of functional groups of PANI, PEO and ZnO in nanofiber structure. SEM micrographs demonstrate beads-free, thinner and smooth nanofibers with ZnO contribution to electrospun PANI/PEO nanofibers. Moreover, according to the gas sensing results, the PANI/PEO nanofibers exhibit 115 s and 457 s response time and recovery time, respectively. However, the PANI/PEO/ZnO nanofibers exhibit 245 s and 153 s response time and recovery time, respectively. PANI/PEO/MOx composite nanofibers ensure stability to the NH₃ gas owing to the high surface/volume ratio and decrease in the humidity dependence of gas sensors, making gas sensors more stable to the environment.

In this study, ZnO was deposited via RF magnetron sputtering techniques on PANI/PEO nanofibers as a different approach instead of in situ polymerization to investigate and enhance the sensor response and recovery time of the PANI/PEO/ZnO and PANI/PEO composite nanofibers to ammonia. These results indicated that ZnO can enhance the sensing properties of conductive polymer-based resistive sensors.

The global crisis, originating in the US financial sector, affected the Asian region primarily through three channels – declining trade volumes, exchange rate pressure and asset deflation. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the crisis impacted the four major economies of South Asia, viz. Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and how, by a combination of swift actions on the monetary, fiscal and exchange rate fronts, the worst consequences of the crisis were averted.

The regulatory and supervisory systems in these four economies are then benchmarked against certain desirable norms, which have emerged out of post‐crisis international deliberations.

It is felt that the South Asian regulatory systems perform fairly well vis‐à‐vis these norms.

The paper also touches upon the major highlights of the crisis impact, policy responses and post‐crisis recovery in the Southeast Asian region.

The several similarities and the few contrasts between the two regions on these aspects are also presented.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between micronutrient intake and coronary heart disease (CHD) in middle-aged Jordanian participants.

A case-control study was conducted among patients referring for elective coronary angiography. A total of 400 patients were enrolled in this study. Face-to-face interview was used to complete food frequency questionnaire from which the authors derived usual daily intake of micronutrients. The mean age of participates was 52 years and their average BMI was 30.7 kg/m². Multinomial logistic regression model and linear logistic regression model were used to calculate odd ratios (OR) and its 95 per cent confidence interval (CI) and p-value for trend, respectively. The association between the risk of CHD and micronutrients intake was adjusted for the age, gender, BMI, smoking, physical activity, total energy intake, occupation, education level, marital status and family history.

The study results showed no significant differences between cases and controls for dietary intakes of micronutrients, except for the intake of calcium (p < 0.005), magnesium (p < 0.025), phosphorus (p < 0.023) and potassium (p < 0.006) which were lower in cases than controls. Although no significant trend was observed between most of the dietary intake of micronutrients and the risk of developing CHD, a significant protective effect of magnesium [OR 0.52; 95 per cent CI (0.29-0.95)], phosphorus [OR 0.44; 95 per cent CI (0.24-0.80)] and potassium [OR 0.41; 95 per cent CI (0.22-0.74)] against the risk of CHD was detected.

The findings from this study provide strong evidence that the intake of micronutrients such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium has no significant associations with the risk of CHD.

In the present era, executives are shifting keenly toward industrial Internet of things (IIoTs) spheres. It is observed that IIoTs spheres become a key for each industry to grow up and bear the largest entrepreneurship opportunities globally and is linked to improve the shifting sphere of publics (SSPs). The core objective of research work is SSPs, which is nexus on secondary objectives. The authors proposed the two DSSs ( decision support systems) to full fill secondary objectives as discussing: In case of first objective, the authors proposed a fuzzy-DSS, which assists the executives to identify the weak and poor performing IIoTs spheres so that performance of IIoTs spheres can be accelerated. In case of second objective, grey-DSS aids the same executives to evaluate and benchmark alternative partner under considered IIoTs spheres so that the best partner can be chosen by company 4.0.

The authors conducted the significant systematic literature review and realistic empirical survey in the context of industry IIoTs spheres and extract the appropriate IIoTs spheres. Next, the authors built a framework by compiling the global standardized IIoTs spheres. The framework is utilized to build the two DSSs such as fuzzy- and grey-DSS (to full fill secondary objectives). The both DSSs are simulated by acting on a case study. The authors implemented the fuzzy set coupled with degree of similarity approach on proposing framework as a part of first case-objective and hybrid technique accompanied with grey set on same framework as a part of second case-objective, respectively.

A South African automobile parts manufacturing company is investigated as a case study company 4.0 for the prototype testing and simulation of DSSs. The performance gaps are computed and measured by subtracting each sphere's weight of functional units (FUs) from evaluated ideal weight. The weak performing spheres and FUs are suggested to be improved in future as a part of first objective. Next, A3 parts supplier/partner is advised as the best alternative by simulating the grey-DSS under IIoTs framework as a part of second case-objective. Both secondary objectives (two DSSs) are framed to attain the core objective (SSPs).

As discussed, the core objective of research work is to attain the SSPs, linked to secondary objectives. The research work integrates the knowledge and thinking of SSPs as well as IIoTs researchers to create the novel mathematical and statistical IIoTs in focusing on advance SSPs networks. The research work is momentous for entire Industry 4.0 companies, which troubles to bear more entrepreneurship opportunities (improving the SSPs) at global standard.

Traditionally, firms have been dependent on internal sources such as their own employees – and up to a certain extent, on some external sources, their customers – for innovation. However, in the current scenario of technological dynamism, firms are exploring multiple sources to generate ideas for innovation. Therefore, there is a need to understand the relative effect of various sources of innovations on a firm’s performance.

We offer a conceptual framework where we identify six distinct sources of innovations – firm, customers, external network, competition, macro-environment, and technology and how they create value for focal firms especially their brand equity. We introduce a taxonomy of various costs and benefits related to innovations. We then argue using our proposed taxonomy to understand the relative strengths of various sources of innovation affecting a firm’s brand equity.

We discuss and compare the relative effects of these sources of innovations on a firm’s brand equity by rank-ordering the sources. The customers and the technology as a source of innovation have the maximum impact on the firm’s brand equity followed by the marginal impact of macro-environment and external network of a firm. The firm itself has a moderate impact on its brand equity, while competition has the minimal impact. Further, we also discuss how the relationship is moderated by different innovation characteristics (nature and type of innovations).

The main practical implication is to create awareness among managers about various costs and benefits of the proposed six sources of innovations and their effects on brand equity. Managers would be able to prioritize their sources of innovation based on firms’ current needs, and whether to focus on lower costs or building higher brand equity in the scarce resource environment.

We offer a comprehensive list of six sources of innovation, build a conceptual framework wherein we discuss the relative strengths of these sources affecting brand equity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how queueing theory has been applied to derive results for a Sparre Andersen risk process for which the claim inter‐arrival distribution is hyper Erlang.

The paper exploits the duality results between the queueing theory and risk processes to derive explicit expressions for the ultimate ruin probability and moments of time to ruin in this renewal risk model.

This paper derives explicit expressions for the Laplace transforms of the idle/waiting time distribution in GI/HE_r(k_i,λ_i)/1 and its dual HE_r(k_i,λ_i)/G/1. As a consequence, an expression for the ultimate ruin probability is obtained in this model. The relationship between the time of ruin and busy period in M/G/1 queuing system is used to derive the expected time of ruin.

The study of renewal risk process is mostly concentrated on Erlang distributed inter‐claim times. But the Erlang distributions are not dense in the space of all probability distributions and therefore, the paper cannot approximate an arbitrary distribution function by an Erlang one. To overcome this difficulty, the paper uses the hyper Erlang distributions, which can be used to approximate the distribution of any non‐negative random variable.