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Renal failure is an end-stage consequence after persistent hyperglycemia during diabetic nephropathy (DN), and the etiology of DN has been linked to oxidative stress. The purpose of this research was to determine the beneficial synergistic effects of S-Allyl Cysteine (SAC) and Taurine (TAU) on oxidative damage in the kidneys of type 2 diabetic rats induced by hyperglycemia.

Experimental diabetes was developed by administering intraperitoneal single dose of streptozotocin (STZ; 65 mg/kg) with nicotinamide (NA; 230 mg/kg) in adult rats. Diabetic and control rats were treated with SAC (150 mg/kg), TAU (200 mg/kg) or SAC and TAU combination (75 + 100 mg/kg) for four weeks. The estimation of body weight, fasting blood glucose (FBG), oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), oxidative stress markers along with kidney histopathology was done to investigate the antidiabetic potential of SAC/TAU in the NA/STZ diabetic group.

The following results were obtained for the therapeutic efficacy of SAC/TAU: decrease in blood glucose level, decreased level of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and increased levels of GSH, glutathione-s-transferase (GST) and catalase (CAT). SAC/TAU significantly modulated diabetes-induced histological changes in the kidney of rats.

SAC/TAU combination therapy modulated the oxidative stress markers in the kidney in diabetic rat model and also prevented oxidative damage as observed through histopathological findings.

This paper presents a theorization and an empirical analysis of the influences of international open innovation (IOI) on the international market success of emerging market small and medium-sized enterprises (ESMEs). An analysis of the moderating roles played by cross-cultural competencies and digital alliance capabilities in this specific context is also presented.

The study adopted a quantitative research design involving a survey of 231 ESMEs based in the UAE. The authors formulated some hypotheses and tested them by employing hierarchical regression models.

The findings revealed that IOI positively affects the international market success of ESMEs. The authors further found that both cross-cultural competencies and digital alliance capabilities moderate the relationship between IOI and international market success.

The study advances the international marketing, knowledge and innovation management literature in two ways. First, it is a pioneering study that advances both the theoretical and empirical scholarship regarding the relationship between IOI and emerging market firm international market success by employing an extended resource-based view. Second, it further highlights the role played by cross-cultural competencies and digital alliance capabilities as effective governance mechanisms that moderate the relationship between IOI and international market success.

The highly contagious coronavirus and the rapid spread of COVID-19 disease have generated a global public health crisis, which is being addressed at various local and global scales through social distancing measures and guidelines. This is coupled with debates about the nature of living and working patterns through intensive utilisation of information and telecommunication technologies, leading to the social and institutional acceptability of these patterns as the “new normal”. The primary objective of this article is to instigate a discourse about the potential contribution of architecture and urban design and planning in generating knowledge that responds to pressing questions about future considerations of post pandemic architecture and urbanism. Methodologically, the discussion is based on a trans-disciplinary framework, which is utilised for conceptual analysis and is operationalized by identifying and discoursing design and planning implications. The article underscores relevant factors; originates insights for areas where future research will be critically needed, through key areas: a) Issues related to urban dynamics are delineated from the perspective of urban and human geography, urban design and planning, and transportation engineering; b) Questions that pertain to socio-spatial implications and urban space/ urban life dialectics stem from the field of environmental psychology; and c) Deliberations about new environments that accommodate new living/working styles supervene from ethnographical and anthropological perspectives. The article concludes with an outlook that captures key aspects of the needed synergy between architectural and urban education, research, and practice and public health in a post pandemic virtual and global world.

The purpose of this study is to develop a model for automated classification of old digitised texts to the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), using machine-learning methods.

The general research approach is inherent to design science research, in which the problem of UDC assignment of the old, digitised texts is addressed by developing a machine-learning classification model. A corpus of 70,000 scholarly texts, fully bibliographically processed by librarians, was used to train and test the model, which was used for classification of old texts on a corpus of 200,000 items. Human experts evaluated the performance of the model.

Results suggest that machine-learning models can correctly assign the UDC at some level for almost any scholarly text. Furthermore, the model can be recommended for the UDC assignment of older texts. Ten librarians corroborated this on 150 randomly selected texts.

The main limitations of this study were unavailability of labelled older texts and the limited availability of librarians.

The classification model can provide a recommendation to the librarians during their classification work; furthermore, it can be implemented as an add-on to full-text search in the library databases.

The proposed methodology supports librarians by recommending UDC classifiers, thus saving time in their daily work. By automatically classifying older texts, digital libraries can provide a better user experience by enabling structured searches. These contribute to making knowledge more widely available and useable.

These findings contribute to the field of automated classification of bibliographical information with the usage of full texts, especially in cases in which the texts are old, unstructured and in which archaic language and vocabulary are used.

The aim of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis between Islamic and conventional banks in terms of whether Islamic banks was more or less resilient/risky than conventional counterparts to the pandemic shock. It also examines the role of capital in improving the performance and stability within the two banking systems.

This study uses 82 banks from MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region for periods across 2011–2020, and employs a dynamic panel data approach to examine the resilience within both banking systems during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The results show that the Covid-19 pandemic has a negative impact on conventional banks' stability. However, Islamic banks performed better and were less risky than conventional ones. Banks with high-quality capital are more effective at controlling their risks and improving their performance during the pandemic.

The results offer important financial observations and policy implications to many stakeholders engaging with banks. Actually, the findings of this study facilitate to the stakeholders and bankers to have an alluded picture about determinants of risk and performance. The results can be used by bankers’ policy decision-makers to improve and enhance their consideration for risk management, taking into consideration the type of banking systems.

Compared to the various studies on the stability of Islamic and conventional banks, researchers have not sufficiently addressed the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on risk and performance. Moreover, none of these studies has examined if Islamic banks was more or less resilient/risky than conventional counterparts to the pandemic shock. This leads the authors to identify the similarities and differences between two types of banks in the MENA region in a pandemic shock context.

The complex network structure causes several disruptions in the supply chain that make risk management essential for supply chain management including halal supply chain (HSM). During risk management, several challenges are associated with the risk assessment phase, such as incomplete and uncertain information about the system. To cater this, the authors propose a risk assessment framework that addresses the issues of uncertainty using neutrosophic theory and demonstrated the applicability of the proposed framework through the case of halal supply chain management (HSCM).

The proposed framework is using the capabilities of the neutrosophic number which can handle uncertain, vague and incomplete information. Initially, the risk related to the HSC is identified through a literature review and expert’s input. Further, the probability and impact of each HSM-related risk are assessed using experts’ input through linguistic terms. These linguistic values are transformed into single-value trapezoidal neutrosophic numbers (SVTNNs). Finally, the severity of each HSM-related risk is determined through the multiplication of the probability and impact of each risk and prioritised the risks based on their severity.

A comprehensive risk assessment framework is developed that could be used under uncertainty. Initially, 16 risks are identified related to the HSM. Further, the identified risks are prioritised using the severity of the risks. The high-priority risk is “raw material status”, “raw material wholesomeness” and “origin of raw material” while “information integrity” and “people integrity” are low-priority risks.

HSM risk can be effectively assessed through the proposed framework. The proposed framework applied neutrosophic numbers to represent real-life situations, and it could be used for other supply chains as well.

The proposed method is effectively addressing the issue of linguistic subjectivity, inconsistent information and uncertainty in the expert’s opinion. A case study of the HSC is adopted to illustrate the efficiency and applicability of the proposed risk framework.

The authors compare two market collapse incidents, focusing on their role as turning points for ESG considerations among investors that do not fall under the SRI class. The authors draw from the signaling theory to posit that ESG performance acts as a buffer to retain institutional shareholders under stress conditions.

The authors collect extensive data on institutional shareholdings and corporate performance during the pandemic and the 2008 financial crisis to examine the potential of ESG to act as a downward risk hedging mechanism. The authors test whether superior ESG scores function as insurance and resilience signals that lock investors in through times of high probability of divestments.

Findings indicate that ESG weighs in investment decisions during economic downturn and poor returns. The nature of this positive relationship is not static but dynamic contingent on overall risk materiality considerations.

The authors update regulators, firms, investors and academics on ESG, risk and crisis management. The shifting materiality and the altering impact of ESG practices is our core implication, as well as limitation, in terms of metrics, temporal evolution and interaction with institutional factors, along with portfolio alpha and safe haven potential in ESG asset classes.

The authors extend current literature focusing on portfolio returns and firm valuations to highlight the role of ESG in shareholder retention during poor return periods. The authors further add to existing studies by examining the shifting materiality of ESG pillars during different crisis settings.

This paper aims to present the integrated teaching activity carried out in the Studios of the Master of Science “Architecture-Building Architecture” held at the School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering of the “Politecnico di Milano,” Milan, Italy. The integrated teaching activity related to the structural disciplines was in Sgambi et al., 2019; here the structure of the MSc training and its disciplinary synergies will be presented. Indeed, this type of activity characterizes all the Studios of this Master of Science and involves all the disciplines that contribute to the development of an architectural and cultural heritage preservation project.

In the Studios of the aforementioned Master of Science, teachers of different subjects are involved, working together to guide the student in the development of an architectural project sustainable in all aspects. The fundamentals of each discipline are taught using the best suited teaching methodology and the application phase of each discipline is carried out directly on the students' projects in the form of “learning by making.” The students are thus stimulated to deepen their basic knowledge of each single discipline, making their design choices sustainable.

This experience, born in 2003 and still active, has also achieved good results in employment. Students train using the “learning by making” method to acquire proficiencies in various disciplines of design, giving them the ability to communicate competently with experts belonging to different construction sectors.

The approach illustrated in this paper does not represent the didactic experimentation of a single discipline, but it is typical of the study program of an entire Master of Science. Although this approach is entirely built on a “learning by making” and “active learning” philosophy, it maintains the teaching of the theoretical contents of disciplines at a significantly high level when compared with the contents of a frontal-taught theoretical course. The development of this structure required a strong commitment on the part of the teaching staff in their search for effective teaching methods in each individual discipline and aimed at the architectural project. The results obtained give an added value to the training of future architects.

Lately, sustainability issues are increasingly affecting all sectors, even if oil and gas industry is highly required to improve its social performance because of the societal pressure to environmental protection and social welfare. Sustainability concerns and corporate governance features and practices are more and more connected because sustainability has been perceived as a crucial topic by owners and managers. In this perspective, the empirical analysis aims to explore whether and to what extent, sustainability-oriented corporate governance model is linked with social performance.

By adopting a multi-theoretical framework that includes the legitimacy theory, the stakeholder theory and the resource-based view theory, this analysis used a sample of 42 large European-listed companies belonging to the oil and gas industry. The authors run fixed effects regression models by using a dependent variable, i.e. the social score, available in ASSET4 Thomson Reuters, and some independent variables focused on sustainable corporate governance models, stakeholder engagement, firm profitability, market value and corporate risk level.

Drawing upon the investigation of a moderating effect, findings display that stakeholder engagement is positively associated with corporate social performance and it can be considered an important internal driver able to shape a corporate culture and most likely to address corporate social responsibility issues.

This study confirms the need to develop an organizational and holistic approach to corporate governance practices by analyzing internal and external governance mechanisms. From the managerial perspective, managers should opt for a sustainable corporate governance model, as it is positively correlated with corporate social performance.

There is an urgent need to investigate sustainability issues and their potential association with firm internal mechanisms, particularly in the oil and gas industry. This paper can extend the current body of knowledge by pointing out a positive relationship between stakeholder engagement and firm social performance.

The purpose of this research is to improve the understanding of what constitutes a successful thesis proposal (TP) and as such enhance the quality of the TP writing in architecture, planning and related disciplines.

Based on extended personal experience and a review of relevant literature, the authors proposed a conception of a successful TP comprising 13 standard components. The conception provides specific definition/s, attributes and success rules for each component. The conception was applied for 15 years on several batches of Saudi graduate students. The implications of the conception were assessed by a students' opinion survey. An expert inquiry of experienced academics from architectural schools in nine countries was applied to validate and improve the conception.

Assessment of the proposed conception demonstrated several positive implications on students' knowledge, performance and outputs which illustrates its applicability in real life. Experts' validation of the conception and constructive remarks have enabled further improvements on the definitions, attributes and success rules of the TP components.

The proposed TP conception with its 13 components is limited to standard problem-solving research and will differ in the case of other types such as hypothesis-based research.

The proposed conception is a useful directive and evaluative tool for writing and assessing thesis proposals for graduate students, academic advisors and examiners.

The research contributes to improving the quality of thesis production process among the academic community in the built environment fields.

The paper is meant to alleviate the confusion and hardship caused by the absence of a consensus on what constitutes a successful TP in the fields of architecture, urban planning and related disciplines.