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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 17 July 2023

Kanza Abid, Zafar Iqbal Shams, Muhammad Suleman Tahir and Arif Zubair

The presence of heavy metals in milk causes many acute and chronic physiological dysfunctions in human organs. The present study aims to investigate the heavy metals in cow's and…

Abstract

Purpose

The presence of heavy metals in milk causes many acute and chronic physiological dysfunctions in human organs. The present study aims to investigate the heavy metals in cow's and buffalo's milk of two major cities, Karachi and Gujranwala, Pakistan to estimate metal intake by humans from this source.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 48 milk samples from 2 cities were drawn from animals' udder to avoid contamination. Each sample was digested with nitric acid at 105 oC (degree Celsius) on a pre-heated electric hot plate to investigate the metals by atomic absorption spectroscopy (flame type). Air-acetylene technique analyzed chromium, cadmium and lead, and the hydride method analyzed arsenic in the milk samples.

Findings

The results revealed the highest mean lead concentration (19.65 ± 43.86 ppb) in the milk samples, followed by chromium (2.10 ± 2.33 ppb) and arsenic (0.48 ± 0.73 ppb). Cadmium was not detected in any sample, assuming cadmium's occurrence was below the detection level. The concentrations of all the metals in the samples of the two cities do not differ statistically. Lead concentrations in the buffalo's milk were higher than in cow's milk (p < 0.05). However, the concentrations of arsenic and chromium between buffalo's and cow's milk do not differ statistically. The present study reveals a lower level of metals in the milk than those conducted elsewhere. The mean concentrations of all the metals met the World Health Organization's (WHO) safety guidelines (1993).

Research limitations/implications

Although cadmium causes toxicity in the human body, cadmium could not be measured because cadmium's concentration was below the detection level, which is 1 ppb.

Practical implications

This study will help reduce the toxic metals in our environment, and the sources of heavy metals, particularly from the industrial sector could be identified. The feed and water consumed by the milking animals could be carefully used for feeding them.

Social implications

This study will help reduce the diseases and malfunction of human organs and organ systems since these heavy metals cause toxicity and carcinogenicity in humans. Arsenic and chromium cause cancer while lead causes encephalopathy (a brain disease).

Originality/value

The study reports heavy metal concentrations in the two attributes of four independent variables of raw milk samples that were scarcely reported from Pakistan.

Details

Arab Gulf Journal of Scientific Research, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1985-9899

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 January 2024

Ambreen Sarwar, Atif Khan Jadoon, Mumtaz Anwar Chaudhry, Ayesha Latif and Maria Faiq Javaid

Child malnutrition is a grave concern for Pakistan, as the country has one of the highest incidences of child stunting in the developing world. The present study examines the…

Abstract

Purpose

Child malnutrition is a grave concern for Pakistan, as the country has one of the highest incidences of child stunting in the developing world. The present study examines the relative significance of parents' education on a child's nutritional status in Pakistan.

Design/methodology/approach

For analysis, the study has used data from Phase 7 of the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) (2017–2018). Since the dependent variable ranges from 0 to 1 (1 indicates not a stunted child, while 0 represents a stunted child), binary logistic regressions are used for the analysis.

Findings

The results show that mothers' and fathers' education positively contributes to a child's nutrition. However, mothers' education is considered more significant, especially in the long run. The mother's education categories are positive and significant in the long run, while only their higher education is positive and significant for the father's. Moreover, the magnitude of the effect also shows that the probability of stunting is less if the mothers are educated. The long-run coefficient for mothers' higher education is 0.752, while that of fathers' higher education is only 0.232.

Originality/value

The present study compares the importance of mothers' and fathers' education in child nutrition and concludes that the role of the mother is more crucial for child upbringing. There are rarely any studies that focus on the role of fathers' education in child nutrition and compare whose role, mothers' or fathers,' is more important for child well-being.

Peer review

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-06-2023-0483

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2024

Muhammad Faisal Shahzad, Jingbo Yuan, Farrah Arif and Abdul Waheed

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of two types of social media videos used for destination image development: induced/commercial-oriented content and organic…

244

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of two types of social media videos used for destination image development: induced/commercial-oriented content and organic content (where content is made without commercial interest, such as vlogs classified as user-generated content).

Design/methodology/approach

Experimental research using “Emotive EEG” (electroencephalogram) in a controlled environment was conducted with 30 participants (20 males, 10 females), age range 18 to 26. Emotive EEG recording was performed while the participants watched both types of video clips. Test results for both groups indicate that induced content is preferred over organic content.

Findings

This study opens up future research avenues where neuromarketing’s “Marketer Friendly” EEG equipment can be applied to the customer selection process.

Originality/value

Marketing analysts can gauge the interest and response of customers on different types of social media video content for destination marketing based on the findings of this study.

Details

Journal of Islamic Marketing, vol. 15 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1759-0833

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 November 2021

Uzor Onyia, Charles Egbu, Subashini Suresh and Suresh Renukappa

Construction management skills and competencies (CMSC) are of greatest importance for the industry to succeed and thrive. Some factors are critical to CSMC development. Hence…

Abstract

Purpose

Construction management skills and competencies (CMSC) are of greatest importance for the industry to succeed and thrive. Some factors are critical to CSMC development. Hence, following the restrictions occasioned by the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, this study reviewed and examined these factors to understand their level of influence in the remote development of CMSC adopted by the industry within and post the disruptions induced by the pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopted a quantitative and descriptive research method. Data were sourced from 155 completed and usable survey questionnaires with registered and licensed engineering and construction professionals practicing in both private and public sectors in Nigeria. Participants were drawn from the membership database of the Nigeria Society of Engineers.

Findings

The identified critical success factors (CSFs) are categorised into organisational factors which include leadership, engineering project networks and eLearning, measurement and review system, strategy and resources, organisational culture, tradition and structure. In addition to individual factors in this order of influence; willingness to learn, promotion and career development, obtaining certified qualification and obtaining respect of peers are CSFs of remote development of CMSC in Nigeria.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to identify and examine the CSFs to remote development of CMSC tailored to developing countries in Africa. It explored the two categories of CSFs in both remote and traditional CMSC developments and established that the organisational factors remain positively dominants in traditional as well as in remote development of CMSC. It further ranked the individual factors in their order of influence in Nigeria, offered insights into motivation of construction management trainees in developing countries and offered areas of improvements such as quality of training and certification.

Details

Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology , vol. 21 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1726-0531

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 January 2024

Üzeyir Kement, Bihter Zeybek, Sinem Soylu, Gül Erkol Bayram and Ali Raza

This study aims to investigate the impact of the transformational leadership style on the behaviour of restaurant employees. Also, it was aimed to investigate the effect of…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the impact of the transformational leadership style on the behaviour of restaurant employees. Also, it was aimed to investigate the effect of transformational leadership on trust and the effect of trust on altruistic intention and organizational commitment.

Design/methodology/approach

The study integrates insights from transformational leadership to provide a fresh perspective to advance comparative organizational behaviour research. To test the hypotheses, the authors conduct a multiple analysis with observations from Turkey getting staff in culinary department with a quantitative survey.

Findings

This study equips different professional entities in the food and beverage industry with useful, contextualized links between transformational leadership. According to results, the perspective of transformational leadership style affects the concepts of trust, altruistic value and organizational commitment positively. Charisma, moral modelling and individualized consideration had a significant effect on trust. Also, trust has a significant effect on altruistic intention and organizational commitment.

Research limitations/implications

The present study incorporated confidence as a mediating variable; however, it is recommended that alternative scales be used in subsequent research endeavours. Future research endeavours may incorporate theoretical frameworks such as theory of planned behaviour or stimulus-organism-response.

Practical implications

Transformational leadership style is a good acquisition for restaurant employees. There is a healthier and safer job sharing in these restaurants. This can be interpreted as a more satisfied customer. A good leader has a great contribution to the future and sustainability of the business.

Social implications

This research created a new model and examined employees’ views on the company and its management. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that charisma, moral modelling and individualized consideration had a significant effect on trust.

Originality/value

This assists in learning better service quality developing and business practices to augment culinary staff, thereby maximizing their valuable contributions to tourism growth. This research created a new model and examined employees’ views on the company and its management.

Details

European Business Review, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0955-534X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 October 2023

Tuan Duong Nguyen, Thuy Thi Nguyen and Phuong Cam Nguyen

This study aimed to investigate the impact of job embeddedness (JE) on the turnover intention (TI) of the public sector with the mediating effect of the individual factor (i.e…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aimed to investigate the impact of job embeddedness (JE) on the turnover intention (TI) of the public sector with the mediating effect of the individual factor (i.e. life satisfaction [LS]) and the moderating effect of the leadership style (i.e. ethical leadership [EL]).

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopted a quantitative design to collect data from 236 employees working in the public sector in Vietnam through field research using structured questionnaires. Data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that JE negatively affects the TI of public sector employees through the mediation effect of LS. Additionally, this study indicates that EL moderates the relationship between JE and TI.

Practical implications

This study implies that public sector stakeholders should consider both individual and contextual factors to manage and retain employees. In addition to addressing employees' embeddedness with the organisation and community and their LS, public organisations need to focus on hiring, training and promoting ethical leaders.

Originality/value

This study highlights the role of embeddedness within both the organisation and the community, along with the role of EL in the LS and TI of public sector employees.

Details

International Journal of Public Sector Management, vol. 36 no. 4/5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3558

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 October 2022

Laurent Yacoub, Sara Abou Ibrahim, Eliane Achy and Eva Nicolas

This study aims to identify the major job stressors that can affect employees’ mental health in the Lebanese commercial banks during the economic turmoil. This study also aims to…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to identify the major job stressors that can affect employees’ mental health in the Lebanese commercial banks during the economic turmoil. This study also aims to identify the effects of the mental problems on the employees in addition to the role of human resources in promoting and preventing mental well-being at the workplace.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors interviewed 28 bank employees and the semi-structured interviews last for around 50 min, starting by asking the employees a general question about the concept of mental health disorder. The authors used a purposive sampling in which the population sample is selected based on purpose and the characteristics of a specific category of individuals. Moreover, a thematic analysis is used to analyze the data.

Findings

The findings of this study indicate that most of the employees were suffering from many work-related stressors that have negatively affected their mental well-being. The stress and pressures have significantly increased during the economic crisis. However, most of the interviewees were not or rarely supported by their human resources department and their administration to help them get adapted for such a crisis or for the changes at the workplace.

Originality/value

Mental health disorders are present in the daily normal life and in the workplace as well. The banking industry is not an exceptional one.

Details

International Journal of Organizational Analysis, vol. 31 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1934-8835

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 February 2024

Sania Arif and Sidrah Al Hassan

Employees of Pakistani public sector organizations feel thwarted toward their goal attainment because of strict adherence to rules and regulations and tall hierarchies existing in…

Abstract

Purpose

Employees of Pakistani public sector organizations feel thwarted toward their goal attainment because of strict adherence to rules and regulations and tall hierarchies existing in this region. Therefore, keeping in view the harmful effects of perceived organizational obstruction, the aim of the current study was to investigate the perceived organizational obstruction as an attribution that triggers job neglect through perceived organizational frustration. Harvey’s expanded attribution-emotion model of workplace aggression and an attributional perspective on workplace aggression provide the theoretical justification. Moreover, the moderating role of self-control was proposed to mitigate the indirect effect of organizational obstruction on job neglect through perceived organizational frustration.

Design/methodology/approach

A three-wave data collection was done by using a close-ended questionnaire distributed to a total of 600 administrative employees of public sector organizations operating in Rawalpindi/Islamabad (Pakistan). However, matching three times and discarding the incomplete questionnaires led to a sample of 375 on which the analysis was done.

Findings

Perceived organizational obstruction positively predicted job neglect. Likewise, organizational frustration mediated the aforementioned link. Moreover, the higher level of self-control weakens this underlying process by suppressing job neglect behavior.

Originality/value

The current study added to the limited literature on public sector organizations that has taken perceived organizational obstruction as a predictor variable. Moreover, this study explains how this phenomenon translates into non-hostile behavior that is difficult to identify and punish in public sector organizations. Moreover, the trait of self-control is added to the literature of non-hostile behaviors that dampen the impulsivity to indulge in job neglect.

Article
Publication date: 19 December 2023

Lifu Li and Kyeong Kang

The purpose of this study is to present the relationship between family support factors and Chinese college students’ online-startup thinking on live streaming platforms…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to present the relationship between family support factors and Chinese college students’ online-startup thinking on live streaming platforms. Considering China's specific online entrepreneurial environment, this paper divides Chinese college students’ online-startup thinking according to the liberal–conservative thinking theory. This study classifies family support factors based on the tangible–intangible resource division theory. Different tangible and intangible factors have different impacts on their online-startup thinking.

Design/methodology/approach

This study tests 588 samples based on the partial least squares path modelling and variance-based structural equation modelling. This study promotes importance-performance map analysis to explore additional findings of influencing factors and provide suitable suggestions for Chinese college students and related departments.

Findings

Tangible family support factors, such as labour resources support, and intangible family support factors, such as verbal encouragement, can positively enhance Chinese college students’ liberal thinking to online-startup and decrease their conservative thinking. Meanwhile, according to importance-performance map analysis results, verbal encouragement from the intangible unit instead of financial resource support from the tangible unit has a higher total effect and performance on Chinese college students’ liberal thinking and conservative thinking.

Originality/value

This study draws on psychology research based on Chinese college students’ unique entrepreneurial mentality. This paper divides Chinese college students’ thinking in online-startups into liberal thinking and conservative thinking based on the liberal–conservative thinking theory. Meanwhile, according to the feature of Chinese family support factors, this paper classifies various elements based on the tangible–intangible resource division theory, which is helpful for scholars to understand that the student perceptions of the value of family support are critical to the success of the online-startup.

Details

Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2053-4604

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 September 2023

Mohammed Ayoub Ledhem and Warda Moussaoui

This paper aims to apply several data mining techniques for predicting the daily precision improvement of Jakarta Islamic Index (JKII) prices based on big data of symmetric…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to apply several data mining techniques for predicting the daily precision improvement of Jakarta Islamic Index (JKII) prices based on big data of symmetric volatility in Indonesia’s Islamic stock market.

Design/methodology/approach

This research uses big data mining techniques to predict daily precision improvement of JKII prices by applying the AdaBoost, K-nearest neighbor, random forest and artificial neural networks. This research uses big data with symmetric volatility as inputs in the predicting model, whereas the closing prices of JKII were used as the target outputs of daily precision improvement. For choosing the optimal prediction performance according to the criteria of the lowest prediction errors, this research uses four metrics of mean absolute error, mean squared error, root mean squared error and R-squared.

Findings

The experimental results determine that the optimal technique for predicting the daily precision improvement of the JKII prices in Indonesia’s Islamic stock market is the AdaBoost technique, which generates the optimal predicting performance with the lowest prediction errors, and provides the optimum knowledge from the big data of symmetric volatility in Indonesia’s Islamic stock market. In addition, the random forest technique is also considered another robust technique in predicting the daily precision improvement of the JKII prices as it delivers closer values to the optimal performance of the AdaBoost technique.

Practical implications

This research is filling the literature gap of the absence of using big data mining techniques in the prediction process of Islamic stock markets by delivering new operational techniques for predicting the daily stock precision improvement. Also, it helps investors to manage the optimal portfolios and to decrease the risk of trading in global Islamic stock markets based on using big data mining of symmetric volatility.

Originality/value

This research is a pioneer in using big data mining of symmetric volatility in the prediction of an Islamic stock market index.

Details

Journal of Modelling in Management, vol. 19 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5664

Keywords

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