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The present study intends to measure buying intention of Generation Z (Gen Z) on social networking sites (SNSs) incorporating perceived risk with the social commerce adoption model (SCAM).

Data were collected via an online questionnaire, and the study used a total of 349 accurate and useable responses. The population of the study includes Indian young consumers coming from the Gen Z cohort. Data were analyzed using SPSS 20 and AMOS 22.0. The proposed hypotheses were statistically tested.

The empirical results show that perceived risk is a significant and strong predictor of perceived usefulness that, in turn, negatively influences buying intention. Among all the constructs of SCAM, perceived usefulness is the most influential and strongest predictor of buying intention. The proposed model explained approximately 34% of the variance in the behavioral intention.

Based on the findings of this study, many theoretical and practical implications may be inferred that can be used to make recommendations to social commerce companies and help them understand the buying intention of Gen Z.

There are many studies that have examined buying intention and a few have measured it on Gen Z. The present study is novel in itself as it has measured the buying intention of Gen Z using the SCAM in the Indian context. Hence, the present research attempts to comprehend the variables influencing buying intention and analyses the relationship between these factors in the social media setting.

The purpose of this study is to assess students' behaviors toward biodiversity management in higher education institutions. This study expands upon the value belief norm (VBN) theory by examining how environmental values, beliefs and norms impact students' engagement in biodiversity management.

An online survey was undertaken using a Google questionnaire. Convenience and snowball sampling techniques were adopted to reach the targeted students. The proposed associations were examined through the application of SEM with the use of AMOS software.

The findings provide valuable insights into students' behaviors regarding biodiversity management and demonstrate that extending VBN theory to the context of biodiversity, with the incorporation of environmental knowledge and environmental-friendly activities, resulted in a robust model for understanding students' behaviors toward biodiversity management in higher education institutions.

The findings can guide targeted interventions to boost student engagement in biodiversity management. Understanding the factors influencing their behaviors can aid in designing effective educational programs that promote biodiversity conservation and management.

This uniqueness of this study rests in its extension of the VBN theory to the context of biodiversity management, the exploration of environmental knowledge and environmental-friendly activities, and its focus on higher education institutions. Its value lies in guiding targeted interventions and campus sustainability strategies, aligning with UN SDGs to support global biodiversity and sustainable practices.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the antecedents of metaverse adoption intention amongst Muslim students by expanding the technology acceptance model (TAM) to incorporate factors viz. perceived cyber risk (PCR), perceived enjoyment (PE), personal innovativeness in IT (PIT), self-efficacy (SE), trust (TR) and religiosity (RL).

An online survey was circulated using a Google questionnaire to gather information on the study constructs. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were adopted to reach the targeted students. The proposed associations were examined through the application of structural equation modelling with the use of AMOS software.

The findings suggest that the empirical results derived from the study present a compelling and effective model, and the model is designed to elucidate the intentions of Indian Muslim students regarding their willingness to embrace or adopt the metaverse. The research has identified and showcased a robust conceptual framework that provides insights into the factors influencing the metaverse adoption intentions among Muslim students.

This research adds value to the existing literature by expanding the understanding of metaverse adoption amongst Muslim students. This thorough framework offers an intricate comprehension of metaverse adoption, offering a theoretical framework beyond traditional technological determinants. This study provides important insights that can assist educationists, administrators and policymakers in various ways in chalking out essential strategies, policies and programmes related to metaverse adoption amongst Muslim students.

This study is unique as the six additional constructs, viz. PCR, PE, PIT, SE, TR and RL, are included in the original TAM model, thus filling the literature gap. It also augments the comprehension of the metaverse and unfolds the antecedents of metaverse adoption intention amongst Muslim societies through the lens of students.

This study aims to assess the effect of water variation on bioethanol production from cassava peels (CP) using Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast as the ethanologenic agent.

The milled CP was divided into three treatment groups in a small-scale flask experiment where each 20 g CP was subjected to two-stage hydrolysis. Different amount of water was added to the fermentation process of CP. The fermented samples were collected every 24 h for various analyses.

The results of the fermentation revealed that the highest ethanol productivity and fermentation efficiency was obtained at 17.38 ± 0.30% and 0.139 ± 0.003 gL⁻¹ h⁻¹. The study affirmed that ethanol production was increased for the addition of water up to 35% for the CP hydrolysate process.

The finding of this study demonstrates that S. cerevisiae is the key player in industrial ethanol production among a variety of yeasts that produce ethanol through sugar fermentation. In order to design truly sustainable processes, it should be expanded to include a thorough analysis and the gradual scaling-up of this process to an industrial level.

This paper is an original research work dealing with bioethanol production from CP using S. cerevisiae microbe.

1. Hydrolysis of cassava peels using 13.1 M H₂SO₄ at 100 ^oC for 110 min gave high Glucose productivity

2. Highest ethanol production was obtained at 72 h of fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

3. Optimal bioethanol concentration and yield were obtained at a hydration level of 35% agitation

4. Highest ethanol productivity and fermentation efficiency were 17.3%, 0.139 g.L⁻¹.h⁻¹

Hydrolysis of cassava peels using 13.1 M H₂SO₄ at 100 ^oC for 110 min gave high Glucose productivity

Highest ethanol production was obtained at 72 h of fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Optimal bioethanol concentration and yield were obtained at a hydration level of 35% agitation

Highest ethanol productivity and fermentation efficiency were 17.3%, 0.139 g.L⁻¹.h⁻¹

This study investigated the role of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, by concentrating on the obstacles that hinder effective governance of community infrastructure planning.

The qualitative approach via case study design was adopted in this study. The Song District, located in the State of Sarawak, Malaysia, was selected as the case study area. Semi-structured interview sessions were conducted with 21 respondents who belonged to the government agencies involved in rural community infrastructure planning and village community representatives to capture their views on community infrastructure development planning in the selected district. The gathered responses were analysed thematically and the outcomes are discussed.

The findings revealed that although the development of community infrastructure in Song District has progressed and has exerted transformative impacts on rural livelihood, several challenges were identified in the delivery of community infrastructure. The four main themes of challenges that emerged from the data were location factors, financial resources, cooperation and collaboration of stakeholders, as well as community involvement. The outcomes disclosed that, in terms of governance, the institutional roles of the community, stakeholders and government agencies must be integrated throughout the rural community infrastructure planning process to resolve the emerging challenges effectively so that the demands of the rural community are met meritoriously.

An effective and efficient community infrastructure planning approach ascertains that the community infrastructure development gaps in rural areas are bridged and brings fruition to the rural communities for their livelihood transformation.

This paper delineates a view on the governance aspect of community infrastructure planning in Sarawak, Malaysia, that is largely untapped. The study outcomes may facilitate practitioners and academics to move forward and recommend improvements in the approach to rural community infrastructure planning.

This study aims to assess the effects of green supply chain management (GSCM) strategies on health-care organizations’ environmental performance (EP). It also assesses that green innovation (GI), including green technology innovation (GTI) and green management innovation (GMI), plays mediating roles in the connection between GSCM and EP.

In total, 375 health-care sector employees in the Chattogram division of Bangladesh provided opinions in the questionnaire survey. PLS-SEM was used to verify the data’s validity and reliability and assess the hypotheses.

The findings reveal that GSCM practices significantly positively impact GI and EP. Moreover, GTI and GMI mediate the relationship between GSCM and EP in Bangladesh’s health-care sector.

The current findings could promote environmental sustainability in Bangladesh’s health-care industry by fostering environmental collaboration.

The detection of the mediation effect of GTI and GMI on GSCM and EP is a unique contribution of this study that enriches the present GSCM and GI literature, particularly in the Bangladeshi health-care sector.

This study evaluates the knowledge structure of building information modeling (BIM) in green buildings. Buildings are one of the main contributors to carbon emissions, and implementing BIM in green buildings is seen as an indispensable approach to mitigate environmental and climate change issues.

Through a bibliometric analysis, 297 publications retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) were analyzed to explore their intellectual structure.

Bibliographic coupling analysis produced four clusters on current and emerging trends, while co-word analysis produced four clusters on future BIM and green building trends. Current and emerging trends revolve around BIM adoption in green and existing buildings, life cycle analysis (LCA) and sustainable rating tools. Future trends related to BIM and performance analysis and optimization, the BIM framework for green building design and construction, overcoming barriers and maximizing benefits in BIM adoption.

The implications of this study are relevant to all BIM and green building stakeholders, including developers, engineers, architects, occupants, tenants and the whole community.

This study examines the crucial integration of BIM and green building within the more extensive construction and building field scope.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an index for measuring urban house price affordability that integrates spatial considerations and to explore the drivers of housing affordability using the post-least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) approach and the ordinary least squares method of regression analysis.

The study is based on time-series data collected from 2005 to 2021 for 256 prefectural-level city districts in China. The new urban spatial house-to-price ratio introduced in this study adds the consideration of commuting costs due to spatial endowment compared to the traditional house-to-price ratio. And compared with the use of ordinary economic modelling methods, this study adopts the post-LASSO variable selection approach combined with the k-fold cross-test model to identify the most important drivers of housing affordability, thus better solving the problems of multicollinearity and overfitting.

Urban macroeconomics environment and government regulations have varying degrees of influence on housing affordability in cities. Among them, gross domestic product is the most important influence.

The paper provides important implications for policymakers, real estate professionals and researchers. For example, policymakers will be able to design policies that target the most influential factors of housing affordability in their region.

This study introduces a new urban spatial house price-to-income ratio, and it examines how macroeconomic indicators, government regulation, real estate market supply and urban infrastructure level have a significant impact on housing affordability. The problem of having too many variables in the decision-making process is minimized through the post-LASSO methodology, which varies the parameters of the model to allow for the ranking of the importance of the variables. As a result, this approach allows policymakers and stakeholders in the real estate market more flexibility in determining policy interventions. In addition, through the k-fold cross-validation methodology, the study ensures a high degree of accuracy and credibility when using drivers to predict housing affordability.

This study aims to determine the best waqf-based Islamic microfinancial institution (IMFI) model by first determining various viable waqf-based IMFI models and then evaluating them based on certain criteria to obtain the best model.

A combination of Delphi and analytic network process (ANP) methods was used. The Delphi method was used to determine various waqf-based IMFI models and validate them, whereas the ANP method was used to evaluate those models to prioritize and find the best model.

The Delphi results show nine proposed waqf-based IMFI models that have commercial, social or integrated commercial-social orientation, where each could be in the form of a micro bank, micro venture capital (MV) or micro cooperative (MC). Delphi and ANP then determined the strategic, commercial and social criteria to evaluate the models. Finally, the ANP results show that the best waqf-based IMFI models are the integrated waqf-based micro bank, integrated waqf-based MV and integrated waqf-based MC. Integrated waqf-based IMFI provides Islamic microfinance services as well as Islamic social finance services, including waqf, zakat and infaq.

The adoption of waqf-based IMFI could solve the structural problems of IMFIs, such as funding, low capital, mismatch, liquidity, outreach and sustainability.

The conceptual framework and method used in this study can be applied to determine and evaluate waqf-based IMFI models in other countries.

This study begins by determining various viable waqf-based IMFI models and then evaluating them to determine the priority and best waqf-based IMFI model.

While the Noble Quran dictates the prohibition of interest, conventional banks promote Islamic banking by opening Islamic banking windows. Against this backdrop, this study aims to investigate the perceived gaps between managers and clients in Islamic marketing and banking, focusing on conventional banks’ Islamic banking windows.

Guided by a qualitative approach, semi-structured personal interviews and observations served as the data collection methods, involving 25 banks and 50 respondents in 3 different districts, namely, Shirajganj, Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj of Bangladesh from January to October 2023. The data were analysed using ATLAS.ti 2023 to explore codes and quotations derived from 14 interview questions. Further, ATLAS.ti 2023 facilitated synthesizing content, concepts, code occurrence, network analysis and thematic analysis.

Islamic and non-Islamic banks use Quranic verses, hadiths (prophetic traditions), images of mosques, the Kaaba and Arabic texts as Islamic marketing tools. These spiritual, divine and prescriptive tools are associated with Islamic banking. However, conventional banks receive criticism for having separate Islamic banking windows to serve religiously conscious clients, which generates tension among clients and bank managers.

The findings can theoretically assist academics in examining conventional banks’ Islamic marketing and banking practices, opening Islamic banking windows. Importantly, Shariah boards can play policy roles in safeguarding the function of Islamic marketing and banking. Managers can use the findings to anticipate client perceptions and enhance Islamic marketing and banking strategies. Likewise, the social implications include the explicit stance of Shariah to mitigate the mixture of halal and haram banking.

This pioneering study explores the perspectives of Islamic banking windows by non-Islamic banks. The combination of Islamic marketing and banking is a noteworthy novelty in this study and deserves recognition for its unique contribution to halal marketing and finance.