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The purpose of this research study is to extract and identify named entities from Hadith literature. Named entity recognition (NER) refers to the identification of the named entities in a computer readable text having an annotation of categorization tags for information extraction. NER is an active research area in information management and information retrieval systems. NER serves as a baseline for machines to understand the context of a given content and helps in knowledge extraction. Although NER is considered as a solved task in major languages such as English, in languages such as Urdu, NER is still a challenging task. Moreover, NER depends on the language and domain of study; thus, it is gaining the attention of researchers in different domains.

This paper proposes a knowledge extraction framework using finite-state transducers (FSTs) – KEFST – to extract the named entities. KEFST consists of five steps: content extraction, tokenization, part of speech tagging, multi-word detection and NER. An extensive empirical analysis using the data corpus of Urdu translation of Sahih Al-Bukhari, a widely known hadith book, reveals that the proposed method effectively recognizes the entities to obtain better results.

The significant performance in terms of f-measure, precision and recall validates that the proposed model outperforms the existing methods for NER in the relevant literature.

This research is novel in this regard that no previous work is proposed in the Urdu language to extract named entities using FSTs and no previous work is proposed for Urdu hadith data NER.

The purpose of this paper is to apply state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for assessing the quality of the restaurants using restaurant inspection data. The machine learning techniques are applied to solve the real-world problems in all sphere of life. Health and food departments pay regular visits to restaurants for inspection and mark the condition of the restaurant on the basis of the inspection. These inspections consider many factors that determine the condition of the restaurants and make it possible for the authorities to classify the restaurants.

In this paper, standard machine learning techniques, support vector machines, naïve Bayes and random forest classifiers are applied to classify the critical level of the restaurants on the basis of features identified during the inspection. The importance of different factors of inspection is determined by using feature selection through the help of the minimum-redundancy-maximum-relevance and linear vector quantization feature importance methods.

The experiments are accomplished on the real-world New York City restaurant inspection data set that contains diverse inspection features. The results show that the nonlinear support vector machine achieves better accuracy than other techniques. Moreover, this research study investigates the importance of different factors of restaurant inspection and finds that inspection score and grade are significant features. The performance of the classifiers is measured by using the standard performance evaluation measures of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity.

This research uses a real-world data set of restaurant inspection that has, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, never been used previously by researchers. The findings are helpful in identifying the best restaurants and help finding the factors that are considered important in restaurant inspection. The results are also important in identifying possible biases in restaurant inspections by the authorities.

This chapter aims to examine the linkages between urbanisation, real estate investments and sustainability in Turkey. To do so, theoretical and conceptual frameworks were discussed based on literature review. Through mixed-methods research, primary data were collected via questionnaires from relevant 248 company executives while secondary data were collected from relevant institutions. Data on two case study green buildings were also collected through documents from building owners and project and construction managers. The results show that many urban development, transformation and real estate projects are executed without considering sustainability principles. Thus, nationally, mixed-use real estate and green building projects are limited even though a majority of the companies surveyed (85%) designed and executed projects based on a green structure approach. Generally, the costs of green buildings are higher compared to traditional buildings. There is the need for strategic spatial plans based on reliable cadastre systems, targeting national and regional development in using existing resources efficiently and paying attention to the importance of environmental quality. For the efficiency of real estate markets, advanced real estate market and financing systems and the integration of sustainability principles into decision-making process in planning, design, construction and operation phases of projects should be considered.

This study sought to better understand how to support and plan for a collaborative effort that brought educators together from three universities in the United States and Pakistan. This project sough to foster collaborative relationships between the two countries by expanding knowledge, collaboration, and capacity in middle schools in the Punjab region of Pakistan with a particular focus on underrepresented students and middle grades STEM instruction.

This study was informed through the use of formative survey data gathered from the workshop participants throughout the course of the week. The researchers conducted pre and post surveys of 22 participants using Likert scale items.

This project provided insights regarding curriculum alignment, engaging communication, teacher-centered formative data. These findings offered insights on how to grow as reflective practitioners and researchers, and how to form a robust multi-national professional learning community.

The survey data were gathered from participants who willingly sought professional development in one region of Pakistan. The sample was small (four participating middle schools and one local university) and thus the findings cannot be necessarily generalized to a greater population.

This project provides practical insights of how teams can work together in regard to building a professional learning community. Teams can plan with intentionality, foster various modes of discussion, and empower both teachers and students to inquire, solve problems, and share their insights.

The STEM topics in this study are important across continents. Navigating time constraints and distance is feasible through communication, attention to objectives and clarity in goals, and a desire to learn outside of one’s usual comfort zones.

This project was unique in the time and space in which it was designed and implemented, yet it offers value in fostering ongoing collaboration through various modalities and in being intentional in the planning process.

Islamic marketing ethics focus on the principles of equity, justice and value maximization for the welfare of society. These ethics play a vital role in elevating the standards of customer behavior. The strategy of focusing customer is now considered as important element because of rapidly changing marketing trends in Islamic banks. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out the important features of Islamic marketing ethics and identify their effect on customer’s satisfaction in Islamic banking.

This study is descriptive and quantitative. Data were collected from 1000 customers of Islamic banks by applying convenient sampling technique. Smart PLS was used to check the scale validation by confirmatory factor analysis. To test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling technique was used.

Results enlightened that Islamic marketing ethics play a significant role in enhancing the customer’s satisfaction. Islamic banks should focus on marketing mix along with Islamic and ethical perspectives to improve the customer’s satisfaction level.

This study highlighted that Islamic marketing ethics have great impact on customer satisfaction. Therefore, Islamic banks need to concentrate on the ethical perspective of Islamic marketing in order to develop long term customer relationships. Islamic banks need to revise their marketing practices, and they should align their marketing tactics with ethical Islamic boundaries. They need to design, communicate and enforce the code of Islamic ethics within organizations.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how Islamic marketing ethics effect customer satisfaction.

This study aims to highlight the impact of information acquisition confidence and social outcome confidence on information search and information share intention. Moreover, the role of subjective knowledge is analyzed as a mediating variable among these relations.

This study conducted a survey which generated 233 valid responses. The data were analyzed using component factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Whereas, to examine the mediating effect, Hayes and Preacher (2008) model for statistical mediation analysis was used.

The results mainly supported the model by confirming that subjective knowledge, information acquisition confidence and social outcome confidence are positively related to information search intention. No association between information acquisition confidence and information sharing intention was found. The study's findings also suggested a positive association of social outcome confidence, subjective knowledge and information acquisition confidence with information share intention. Moreover, the results revealed that there is a significant and positive mediating effect of subjective knowledge between information acquisition confidence and information search intention. Subjective knowledge also acts as a mediator in the relationship between social outcome confidence and information sharing intention.

This study will be helpful for marketers and policymakers for designing marketing strategies which can enhance the flow of information. Moreover, this study will ensure the importance of information to marketers.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study the impact of consumer information acquisition confidence, social outcome confidence on information search and sharing with mediating role of subjective knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to boost the existing literature on adaptive market hypothesis (AMH) as it first time links predictability of gold, silver and metal returns with AMH which permits the predictability of returns to vary over time.

To know whether commodity (gold, silver and metal) market is efficient or not, the commodity returns are observed by using appropriate linear time series tests (variance ratio test, runs test and auto-correlation test). To capture the varying efficiency of three commodities, the study employs subsamples of five years and all sub-samples are exposed to linear econometric tests to reveal how market efficiency (independency of returns) has behaved over time.

It is found that the commodity market (gold, silver and metal) is adaptive because fluctuation is observed in the market efficiency. Returns of all three commodities go under the periods of efficiency and inefficiency. Thus, AMH is the better description of behavior of commodity markets than traditional efficient market hypothesis.

Choice of sub-sample in the study is the first limitation as the authors employ a sub-sample comprising five years. Second, commission, fee and taxes (transection cost) are ignored in the study. Finally, the results are reported on the basis of linear econometric tests. In future, longer time period sub-sample analysis is suggested by the study to explore the varying nature of the commodities. Moreover, rolling window analysis may be a more appropriate method to elucidate the idea of AMH in further research. It is further suggested that the method used in the study could be helpful and adapted to examine other commodities (metal and agriculture), bonds and equity markets around the world.

The study will provide a better investment model which can enable the investors to seek more returns in future. Moreover, this research can be extended to explore multiple issues like adaptive behavior of returns from crypto currencies, bonds, stocks and real estate investment trusts.

As all the linear tests reveal that almost all the commodities show inefficient behavior in full sample period, it is clear that past prices widely would be helpful to predict the future prices at NYSE; furthermore, investors can use the time-varying information to reduce the risk of investment at NYSE. The study is helpful for individual investors as well as portfolio managers and brokers to forecast the prices on the bases of findings.

The paper identifies the need to study why behavior of commodity returns varies over time.

Deeni Madaris of Pakistan and their libraries are playing an important role in educating the large fraction of society. They have always been engaged in the development of social and cultural values of the Pakistani society. This study aims to investigate the organization of information resources and their utilization at Deeni Madaris libraries in the central Punjab, Pakistan.

Quantitative research approach was adopted for this study. A questionnaire was developed on the bases of related literature and discussions with experts of librarianship as well as Islamic studies in Pakistan. The questionnaire was sent to 49 Deeni Madaris, of which five did not have libraries and four did not respond. Forty (81.6 per cent) Deeni Madaris responded and provided the relevant data about their libraries. The collected data were analyzed through SPSS 22. Mostly descriptive statistics were applied to calculate the frequencies, percentage, means and standard deviations. A two-tailed t-test was applied to check the impact of cataloguing and automation on the use of information resources.

It was found that majority of the respondents developed their own classification and cataloguing methods for the organization of information resources and did not have a proper retrieval system. Majority of the respondents were providing lending services to readers. Teachers and final-year students were the key users of the libraries. They mostly referred to books, theses and serials written in Urdu and Arabic language. The situation of library computerization was very weak; only 19 libraries had computers and 11 of them have partially automated the library activities. Library automation and catalogue put positive effects on the use of library resources.

The exploration of the literature showed that libraries of Madaris in Pakistan have always been a priority, but these libraries did not get a position in the library literature as they deserve. This study will fill this gap.

The COVID-19 crisis has forced the majority of higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide to transition to distance education. All countries have faced several challenges, such as the deteriorating economy, poor ICT infrastructure, and insufficient training, in their transition to distance education, with the severity of these challenges being remarkable for developing countries. This chapter aims to investigate tertiary students’ perceptions, attitudes, experiences, and expectations of their higher education journey amid COVID-19 across four developing countries: Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh through an online questionnaire that was administered in each of these countries. This study found that many of the stances, attitudes, concerns, and challenges related to online learning experiences and the emergency status of higher education were common amongst the Lebanese, Afghani, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi participants. The participants across the four countries favored the physical classroom over online learning and identified the disadvantages of distance education that included lack of ICT skills, poor infrastructure, and insufficient training. The few differences that were identified across participants from these countries were mainly attributed to differences in contexts, including socio-economic and political contexts. These findings voice the concerns of one of the key stakeholders, tertiary students, that address the transition to distance education during emergency times and call for immediate intervention from decision and policy-makers.

In this fast-changing world, digitization has become crucial to organizations, allowing decision-makers to alter corporate processes. Companies with a higher corporate social responsibility (CSR) level not only help encourage employees to focus on their goals, but they also show that they take their social responsibility seriously, which is increasingly important in today’s digital economy. So, this study aims to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure of Chinese A-share companies. Furthermore, this research investigates the moderating impact of governance heterogeneity, including CEO power and corporate internal control (INT) mechanisms.

This study used fixed effect estimation with robust standard errors to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure and the moderating effect of governance heterogeneity among Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2020. The whole sample consists of 17,266 firms, including 5,038 state-owned enterprise (SOE) company records and 12,228 non-SOE records. The whole sample data is collected from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research, the Chinese Research Data Services and the WIND databases.

The regression results lead us to three conclusions after classifying the sample into non-SOE and SOE groups. First, Chinese A-share businesses with greater levels of digitalization have lower CSR disclosures. Both SOE and non-SOE are consistent with these findings. Second, increasing CEO authority creates a more centralized company decision-making structure (Breuer et al., 2022; Freire, 2019), which improves the negative association between digitalization and CSR disclosure. These conclusions, however, also apply to non-SOE. Finally, INT reinforces the association between corporate digitization and CSR disclosure, which is especially obvious in SOEs. These findings are robust to alternative HEXUN CSR disclosure index. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative relationship between corporate digitalization and CSR disclosures is more pronounced in bigger, highly levered and highly financialized firms.

Digitalization and CSR disclosure are well studied, but few have examined their interactions from a governance heterogeneity perspective in China. Practitioners and policymakers may use these insights to help business owners implement suitable digital policies for firm development from diverse business perspectives.