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M-wallets have emerged as one of the most important financial innovations of the 21st century, enabling users to carry digital cash by securely storing payment methods on their mobile devices. However, the continued use of m-wallets varies among people for several reasons. This study used the technology continuation theory (TCT), gamification and trust factors to examine the variables affecting consumers' intentions to continue using mobile wallets.

The SmartPLS partial least squares software was used to analyze data from 431 m-wallet users in Vietnam using the structural equation modeling technique.

The data revealed that the research model can predict users' intentions to continue using mobile wallets. TCT constructs demonstrated strong exploratory power in explaining consumer satisfaction and attitudes towards m-wallets. Furthermore, the study confirmed the direct effect of the perceived effectiveness of gamification on perceived ease of use and attitude, as well as its indirect effect on consumers' continued use intentions of mobile wallets via attitude. In addition, the trust negatively influenced consumers' intentions to continue using m-wallets.

The findings of this study can help researchers, practitioners and policymakers improve m-wallet design, development and adoption, as well as advance financial technology and define the future of digital payments in terms of consumer attraction, engagement and financial inclusion.

Based on TCT theory, this study enriches m-wallet research by examining two important factors, gamification and trust, and thus provides insights into how to improve consumers’ intentions to continue using m-wallets in developing countries. This study offers timely insights into theory and practice regarding these factors. It therefore paves the way for researchers and practitioners to learn how easy, enjoyable and secure the end-user experience should be to keep users engaged with m-wallets.

This study aims to investigate the motives of mobile payment adoption from both customers' and retailers' perspectives in Sri Lanka during the COVID-19 pandemic period. It also aims to compare the motives of mobile payment adoption across rural and urban contexts.

The study employs a mixed-method approach with a concurrent research design. Both a survey of customers and in-depth interviews of managers in retail companies are used.

The study discloses that performance expectancy and facilitating conditions (PEFC), Hedonic motivation (HM) and perceived technology security (PTS) as significant motives for customers to adopt mobile payment during this pandemic period. Such findings are confirmed by the four challenges disclose by the retailers. The unfamiliarity of customers, lack of employees' knowledge on mobile payment systems, poor management orientation and lack of computer literacy of customers are the main challenges from the retailers' perspectives. Further, it shows, though PEFC is a common motive, other motives are different across rural and urban.

The findings of the study are helpful for retailers and policymakers. Retailers can develop strategies to enhance mobile payment adoption through PEFC, HM and PTS by giving special attention to the rural community. The main motive possible to use in both rural and urban contexts is PEFC. Further, retailers should take the initiatives to uplift the technological know-how of their employees while inculcating supportive management orientation. Policymakers can use this study to develop policies to enhance the community's familiarity with mobile payment technology and computer literacy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate motives for adopting mobile payments from both customers' and retailers' perspectives while being the first scrutiny to compare rural and urban scenarios. The use of mixed methods with concurrent research design also contributes to originality.

Bullying negatively affects victims’ mental health and has been shown to be associated with anxiety and depression. Moreover, many studies have reported the prevalence of mistreatment among medical students (MS), interns and junior physicians. However, there are limited studies on bullying in the Middle East, and no studies on higher education in Bahrain. The authors’ aim was to investigate and compare the prevalence of bullying between MS at a major public university and non-medical students (NMS) at a private university in Bahrain. The authors also sought to explore the associations between bullying, depression and anxiety.

The authors conducted a survey-based cross-sectional study from October 1 to December 31, 2018, using convenient sampling method. A total of 300 students (150 MS and 150 NMS) participated in the study by answering a questionnaire that explored exposure to different types of bullying. In addition, standard anxiety and depression instruments were distributed to students.

The results showed that MS were more exposed to bullying than NMS, with a significant number (41%) reporting mistreatment from multiple sources, including teachers, consultants and peers. Furthermore, the authors found that bullying was significantly correlated with psychological health, anxiety and depression.

There are limited studies on bullying in the Middle East and no studies on the topic of higher education in Bahrain. Furthermore, the learning environment of tertiary education institutions can be improved by addressing the concerns associated with bullying identified in this study.

This research aims to determine the effect of marketing literacy on the success of entrepreneurial projects (EPS) in Palestine.

To attain the study’s purpose, the researchers employed the questionnaire, which was applied to a random sample of 298 individuals from the owners of entrepreneurial projects in Palestine. The data were analyzed and tested using SmartPls 4 software.

The study reached a set of results, including that the level of marketing literacy among owners of small businesses in the Gaza Strip was significantly higher for customer service (CS), management style (MS), technology (T) and customer retention (CR). In particular, the results implied that CS, MS, T and CR significantly and positively affect EPS.

This research would help the start-ups in Palestine spread marketing literacy among the workers in entrepreneurial projects.

Today, most countries tend to support entrepreneurs and owners of creative ideas and entrepreneurial projects through various programs. To the best of the authors'' knowledge, this research is distinguished by its modernity and scarcity in the Arab world, particularly in Palestine. Thus, it would help raise awareness of marketing literacy among owners of entrepreneurial projects and provide empirical evidence of success for those who are about to establish an entrepreneurial project.

In recent years, there has been significant interest in adopting XR (extended reality) technologies such as VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality), particularly in retail. However, extending activities through reality-mediation is still mostly believed to offer an inferior experience due to their shortcomings in usability, wearability, graphical fidelity, etc. This study aims to address the research gap by experimentally examining the acceptance of metaverse shopping.

This study conducts a 2 (VR: with vs. without) × 2 (AR: with vs. without) between-subjects laboratory experiment involving 157 participants in simulated daily shopping environments. This study builds a physical brick-and-mortar store at the campus and stocked it with approximately 600 products with accompanying product information and pricing. The XR devices and a 3D laser scanner were used in constructing the three XR shopping conditions.

Results indicate that XR can offer an experience comparable to, or even surpassing, traditional shopping in terms of its instrumental and hedonic aspects, regardless of a slightly reduced perception of usability. AR negatively affected perceived ease of use, while VR significantly increased perceived enjoyment. It is surprising that the lower perceived ease of use appeared to be disconnected from the attitude toward metaverse shopping.

This study provides important experimental evidence on the acceptance of XR shopping, and the finding that low perceived ease of use may not always be detrimental adds to the theory of technology adoption as a whole. Additionally, it provides an important reference point for future randomized controlled studies exploring the effects of technology on adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to review cases of artificial reefs built through additive manufacturing (AM) technologies and analyse their ecological goals, fabrication process, materials, structural design features and implementation location to determine predominant parameters, environmental impacts, advantages, and limitations.

The review analysed 16 cases of artificial reefs from both temperate and tropical regions. These were categorised based on the AM process used, the mortar material used (crucial for biological applications), the structural design features and the location of implementation. These parameters are assessed to determine how effectively the designs meet the stipulated ecological goals, how AM technologies demonstrate their potential in comparison to conventional methods and the preference locations of these implementations.

The overview revealed that the dominant artificial reef implementation occurs in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Seas, both accounting for 24%. The remaining cases were in the Australian Sea (20%), the South Asia Sea (12%), the Persian Gulf and the Pacific Ocean, both with 8%, and the Indian Sea with 4% of all the cases studied. It was concluded that fused filament fabrication, binder jetting and material extrusion represent the main AM processes used to build artificial reefs. Cementitious materials, ceramics, polymers and geopolymer formulations were used, incorporating aggregates from mineral residues, biological wastes and pozzolan materials, to reduce environmental impacts, promote the circular economy and be more beneficial for marine ecosystems. The evaluation ranking assessed how well their design and materials align with their ecological goals, demonstrating that five cases were ranked with high effectiveness, ten projects with moderate effectiveness and one case with low effectiveness.

AM represents an innovative method for marine restoration and management. It offers a rapid prototyping technique for design validation and enables the creation of highly complex shapes for habitat diversification while incorporating a diverse range of materials to benefit environmental and marine species’ habitats.

The study aims to validate a mobile learning readiness scale through the technology readiness and acceptance model (TRAM), thereby assessing students' readiness to adopt m-learning in teaching and learning, including its acceptance.

A structured questionnaire was administered to open and distance learning (ODL) students in Odisha, India, to assess their readiness and acceptance of m-learning. 665 valid responses were collected, and collected data was analysed using statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS) and SmartPLS.

The findings of the study reveal that optimism contributes positively to perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) of m-learning (β = 7.921, p < 0.001; β = 2.123, p < 0.05), whereas innovativeness positively contributes to PEOU of m-learning (β = 2.227, p < 0.05), but not PU of m-learning. ODL student's optimism improves his/her PEOU and PU of m-learning, but innovativeness improves only his/her PEOU. Further, the impact of innovativeness is higher than that of optimism in the TRAM and innovativeness is the strong predictor to adopt m-learning. It also shows that the PU of m-learning positively influences behavioural intention to use m-learning (β = 4.757, p < 0.001). Integrating technology readiness (TR) with technology acceptance model (TAM) to predict students' acceptance of m-learning is very useful.

The paper will help decision-makers to adopt and use m-learning in higher educational institutions.

This paper is the first to explore the readiness and acceptance of m-learning in higher education in India.

The presence of green spaces plays a vital role in promoting urban sustainability. Urban green parks (UGPs) help create sustainable cities while providing fundamental ecological functions. However, rapid urbanization has destroyed crucial green areas in Ranchi City, endangering inhabitants’ health. This study aims to locate current UGPs and predict future UGP sites in Ranchi City, Jharkhand.

It uses geographic information system (GIS) and analytical hierarchical process (AHP) to evaluate potential UGP sites. It involves the active participation of urban communities to ensure that the UGPs are designed to meet dweller’s needs. The site suitability assessment is based on several parameters, including the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), land use and land cover (LULC), population distribution, PM 2.5 levels and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. The integration of these factors enables an evaluation of potential UGP’s sites.

The findings of this research reveal that 54.39% of the evaluated areas are unsuitable, 15.55% are less suitable, 12.76% are moderately suitable, 11.52% are highly suitable and 5.78% are very highly suitable for UGPs site selection. These results emphasize that the middle and outer regions of Ranchi City are the most favorable locations for establishing UGPs. The NDVI is the most important element in UGP site appropriateness, followed by LULC, population distribution, PM 2.5 levels and the UHI effect.

This study improves the process of integrating AHP and GIS, and UGPs site selection maps help urban planners and decision-makers make better choices for Ranchi City’s sustainability and greenness.

This study aims to examine the relationship between auditor industry specialization (IS) and audit fees.

The authors utilize 2,100 firm-year data of Jordanian companies from 2005 to 2018. Two conflicting theoretical approaches of IS were employed: the product differentiation approach, as assessed by market share (MS); and the shared efficiency approach, as evaluated by portfolio share (PS).

Results of the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression support product differentiation (shared efficiency) and show that employing experts' auditors exerts a very substantial and favorable direct impact on audit fees (negative).

This research contributes new empirical data to the auditing literature by examining if IS does influence Jordanian businesses' audit fees. The findings offer useful data for Jordanian officials to examine the auditing industry's difficulties while refining regulations and revising auditor pricing. Additionally, the results offer advice to Jordan's regulatory bodies who oversee the auditing industry. Arguably, results from Jordan may be extrapolated to other Middle Eastern nations.

Studies suggest deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a treatment modality for the refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). It is unclear where to place the DBS. Various sites are proposed for placement with the ventral capsule/ventral striatum (VC/VS) among the most studied. Herein, we aim to summarize both quantitative Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) data and qualitative descriptions of the participants' symptoms when given. A literature search conducted via PubMed yielded 32 articles. We sought to apply a standard based on the utilization of YBOCS. This yielded 153 distinct patients. The outcome measure we focused on in this review is the latest YBOCS score reported for each patient/cohort in comparison to the location of the DBS. A total of 32 articles were found in the search results. In total, 153 distinct patients' results were reported in these studies. Across this collection of papers, a total of 9 anatomic structures were targeted. The majority of studies showed a better response at the last time point as compared to the first time point. Most patients had DBS at nucleus accumbens followed by VC/VS and the least patients had DBS at the bilateral superolateral branch of the median forebrain bundle and the bilateral basolateral amygdala. The average YBOCS improvement did not seem to directly correlate with the percentile of patients responding to the intervention.

Well-controlled, randomized studies with larger sample sizes with close follow up are needed to provide a more accurate determination for placement of DBS for OCD.