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The construction industry is a key driver of economic growth. However, the adverse impacts of construction and demolition waste (CDW) resulted from the active construction projects on the economy, environment, public health and social life necessitates an appropriate control and management of this waste stream. Developing and promoting the construction and demolition waste management (CDWM) hierarchy program at the strategic level is essential.

This study aims to propose a hybrid decision model that hybridizes the Integrated Determination of Objective Criteria Weights (IDOCRIW) and weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) under a fuzzy environment.

The proposed method ranks the potential strategic alternatives by the sustainable development criteria to improve the performance of CDWM. As indicated in the results, the fuzzy approach in the decision-making process enables the transformation of linguistic variables into fuzzy numbers that show uncertainty and ambiguity in real-world systems. Moreover, the close correlation between the final ranking of the proposed methodology and the average priority order of the strategic alternatives obtained by five different multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods implies the validity of the model performance.

This proposed model is an appropriate tool to effectively decide on the development of CDWM from a strategic point of view. It aims to establish an MCDM framework for the evaluation of effective strategies for CDWM according to the indices of sustainable development. Implementing proper operational plans and conducting research in CDWM has the highest priority, and enacting new and more stringent laws, rules and regulations against the production of CDW has secondary priority. This study contributes to the field by optimizing the CDWM by applying the top-priority strategies resulted from the proposed fuzzy hybrid MCDM methodology by the decision-makers or policy-makers to reach the best managerial strategic plan.

In the proposed methodology, the IDOCRIW technique is utilized and updated with the triangular fuzzy numbers for the first time in the literature to derive the weights of sustainable development criteria. The fuzzy WASPAS method is utilized for evaluation and providing a final ranking of the strategic alternatives.

This study aims to discuss the main points in the dimensions of the quality of the electronic services to be considered in the future to adapt to future transactions and how to benefit from them.

This study relies on the developments and to cope with them so that the banks and customers shift from dealing in the traditional way to the electronic method, which has become a cause of the gap in understanding customers for electronic banking use of the descriptive-analytical approach. A questionnaire was used as a source for collecting data and information about the study variables. It was distributed to three Jordanian banks, and the number of participants was 170. This study uses two primary sources for collecting data and information: secondary sources that relate to the theoretical aspect and preliminary sources related to the analytical aspect of the study subject.

The results showed that the impact of e-banking quality dimensions of the study (ease of use, time, confidentiality and security) was high, which required the bank to maintain its high levels and monitor them from time to time.

The value of this study comes from the following points: the relationship between the quality of electronic banking services and customer satisfaction; this study is one of the few field attempts in Jordan to assess the impact of the quality of electronic banking services on the satisfaction of customers in banks; this study provides new scientific results on the impact of the quality of electronic banking services on the satisfaction of customers in the Jordanian banks.

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is a continuous improvement methodology that aims to reduce the costs of poor quality, improve the bottom-line results and create value for both customers and shareholders. The purpose of this paper is to explore the critical failure factors for LSS in different sectors, such as manufacturing, services, higher education, etc.

The following research is based on a systematic literature review of 56 papers that were published on Lean, Six Sigma and LSS in well-known academic databases from 1995 to 2013.

There are 34 common failure factors of LSS cited in this paper. There are some common factors for failure, such as a lack of top management commitment and involvement, lack of communication, lack of training and education, limited resources and others. Many gaps and limitations are discussed in this paper and need to be explored in future research.

The paper is one of the first systematic literature reviews to explore the critical failure factors of LSS and discuss the top failure factors from different angles, i.e. countries’ evolution, organisations’ size (small- and medium-sized enterprises and large organisations) and industry nature.

This study aims to investigate the influence of specific socioeconomic factors, namely neighborhood, gender roles and affordability, on the continuous use of clean cooking technologies (CCTs) in households, using evidence from Uganda.

This study adopted an explanatory quantitative design. A questionnaire survey with 379 clean household responses was conducted. The data were analyzed using the Smart Partial Least Squares (PLS) software.

The results indicate that the sustained use of clean cooking technologies in households in Uganda is significantly associated with neighborhood influence, shared gender roles and affordability, collectively accounting for 27.7% of the variance.

The three dimensions of socioeconomic factors under study partially explain the sustained use of CCTs in Uganda. The study does not delve into other socioeconomic factors that could probably account for 72.2% of the variance not explained. The quantitative design may have overlooked the social reality perspectives inherent in qualitative studies that other researchers may endeavor to exploit.

The authors integrated three dimensions of socioeconomic factors – neighborhood influence, gender roles and affordability – with the diffusion of innovation theory (DIT) using Smart PLS to explain the continuous use of CCTs within households.

This paper aims to explore if health professionals share understanding of teamwork that supports collaborative ward rounds.

A purpose-designed survey was conducted in two acute medical and two rehabilitation wards from a metropolitan teaching hospital. Medical officers, nurses and allied health professionals participated. To understand characteristics that support collaborative ward rounds, questions developed from literature and industry experience asked: what are the enablers and challenges to teamwork; and what are clinicians’ experiences of positive teamwork? Descriptive and thematic analyses were applied to the dimensions of effective teamwork as a framework for deductive coding.

Seventy-seven clinicians participated (93% response rate). Findings aligned with dimensions of teamwork framework. There was no meaningful difference between clinicians or specialty. Enablers to teamwork were: effective communication, shared understanding of patient goals, and colleague’s roles. Challenges were ineffective communication, individual personalities, lack of understanding about roles and responsibilities, and organisational structure. Additional challenges included: time; uncoordinated treatment planning; and leadership. Positive teamwork was influenced by leadership and team dynamics.

Ward rounds benefit from a foundation of collaborative teamwork. Different dimensions of teamwork present during ward rounds support clinicians’ shared understanding of roles, expectations and communication.

Rounds such as structured rounding, aim to improve teamwork. Inverting this concept to first develop effective collaboration will support team adaptability and resilience. This enables teams to transition between the multiple rounding processes undertaken in a single ward. The emphasis becomes high-quality teamwork rather than a single rounding process.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of psychological problems (stress, anxiety, depression) between hearing impairment (HI) and tinnitus in tinnitus patients. Sample comprised of 110 patients (male, n=70; female, n=40).

The purposive sampling technique was used based on correlational design. Two scales, tinnitus handicap inventory developed by Newman et al. (1996), and depression, anxiety and stress scale developed by Lovibond and Lovibond (1995), were employed to assess tinnitus, anxiety, stress and depression among tinnitus patients.

The study revealed that tinnitus was positively significant correlated with depression (r=0.55, p<0.001), anxiety (r=0.63, p<0.001), stress (r=0.54, p<0.001) and hearing loss (r=0.81, p<0.001). The results also revealed that hearing loss was positively significant predictor for tinnitus (β=20.72, p<0.001). Further, it was revealed that tinnitus was positively significant predicted by anxiety (β=2.62, p<0.001), stress (β=2.33, p<0.001) and depression (β=2.71, p<0.001); the interaction between psychological symptoms and hearing loss was negatively significant predictor for stress (β=−0.51, p<0.001), anxiety (β=−0.57, p<0.001) and depression (β=−0.62, p<0.001). Moreover, it was revealed that female tinnitus patients were more predisposed to stress, anxiety and depression as compared to male tinnitus patients. Results also elaborated that those tinnitus patient who had profound HI were less inclined toward psychological problems as compared to those tinnitus patients who had mild to moderate level of HI. This study would be helpful for the clinical setting to tackle the psychological problems of tinnitus patients.

This study consisted on population from urban cities of Pakistan; therefore, the findings cannot be generalized on overall population. In future, descriptive as well as experimental studies will be beneficial to describe the mechanism of tinnitus across gender in detail. Native tool for measuring gender-related problems would be effective in future as it integrates cultural aspects as well.

There is a consensus across researchers that tinnitus is one of the most important biological problem which initiates various other psychological problem (Minen et al., 2014; Vogel et al., 2014). Numerous studies have been conducted to find out the relationship of tinnitus with various psychological and biological factors (Boi et al., 2012; Li et al., 2014; Marciano et al., 2003; McCormack et al., 2015; Møller et al., 2010; Udupi et al., 2013; Zöger et al., 2006).