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The purpose of study is to explore how structural problems within housing supply and the marketisation of housing for the poorest and most vulnerable households affect households and can lead to negative outcomes for some households. The research highlights the experiences of out of area (OOA) households that can be below the radar in debates regarding housing crisis.

The research features a case study approach focusing on the experiences of a single household, which is supplemented with an interview with the household’s local authority housing manager. Additionally, freedom of information data is used to analyse the local authority placing the household OOA. The case study is transferable and the additional evidence validates the household’s experiences.

The research finds that OOA housing can be disruptive for households and negatively affect well-being as well as facilitate social cleansing. The case study, while examining the lived experience of OOA housing, also recognises structural causes of the housing crisis within neoliberal housing policy. Furthermore, the case study recognises the positions of local authorities placing households OOA and receiving these households.

The research is original in using a case study to explore OOA housing. OOA housing is an under-researched area where households are not homeless but are housed in a manner detrimental to their well-being. The case study brings together interviews and freedom of information data to highlight findings currently missing in housing research.

This paper aims to provide relevant knowledge about entrepreneurship and women’s leadership in the Indian context. More specifically, it unleashes the veiled challenges as well as success stories of select women entrepreneurs of a developing country to bridge the gap between entrepreneurship theory and practice. It aims to provide directions to the policymakers, educationists, society and families in creating a conducive environment that is essential for the success of women entrepreneurs.

With a qualitative case study approach, data were collected from Tamil Nadu, a southern Indian state which has a maximum number of women entrepreneurs. Face-to-face interviews were conducted to explore the supportive as well as challenging dimensions of their entrepreneurial journey.

Content analysis of the interview transcripts indicated that successful entrepreneurs are opportunity-driven and they focus on innovation, service, generation of wealth and employment. Support from family, especially from fathers or husbands, is as important as the entrepreneurial drive, skills and abilities of an entrepreneur. Success for them is being happy, thriving work, having a happy family, having a great work-life balance and the satisfaction to have served society apart from being independent (economically/ financially). Among India’s societal and cultural realities, women have to conquer many hurdles (both implicit and explicit) in their way concerning the societal attitudes toward women stepping out of the home boundaries and traditional gender role expectations. The silver line is societal attitudes are changing, especially in urban India. There are enough support and encouragement from the family, which helps these women pursue their passion and eventually become a successful leader.

The success stories of women will bring a wave of positive developmental change in India by fostering respect for women in a male-dominated society and flashing the importance of women’s entrepreneurship.

This paper provides a new examination of women entrepreneurs that significantly further the debate about the underrepresentation of women in leadership roles, especially in entrepreneurship in an emerging economy context like India. Apart from the deterrents, it aims to highlight the enablers and motivations to choose this unconventional profession.

This paper aims to conduct a qualitative needs assessment to explore the effectiveness of Houston’s refugee resettlement efforts in the areas of employment, health care and education.

Using referral sampling, the authors identified refugee community leaders and staff members at the five refugee resettlement agencies in Houston. The authors conducted 29 qualitative interviews with these contacts from February–August 2017.

Recently resettled refugees may struggle to find and maintain employment in Houston due to difficulty accessing public transportation. Refugees seeking medical care in Houston often have difficulty navigating the complexities of the health-care system and communicating with their physicians due to language barriers. Finally, refugee children may have trouble adapting to Houston public schools, sometimes because they have limited experience with formal education. This study provided insights into the challenges Houston refugees face during resettlement and these barriers can be mitigated with policies designed specifically to address them.

The authors recommend decreasing public transportation fees for refugees, supporting programs that donate used vehicles to refugees, expanding access to English as a Second Language classes for refugee children and adults and giving refugees designated time to learn English upon arrival.

Houston welcomes more resettled refugees than any other American city. However, few studies have explored the barriers refugees face during the resettlement process.

The information presented in this case was gathered through interviews and observations carried out during the time Ms Joy attended the Initiative for A Competitive Inner City business support program in 2017. In addition, focus groups that took place after the program provided important information and insights into her decision-making process and business goals. Additional interviews were conducted in 2018 and 2019 after the business program ended to gain in-depth knowledge of Ms Joy’s entrepreneurial journey.

This case details the experiences of Winsome Joy in recognizing market opportunities in the child care industry and then expanding into the educational materials industry. The case focuses on challenges related to founding and sustaining her business and the ways in which Ms Joy engaged in “opportunity recognition” and “effectuation” to become a successful entrepreneur. The case points out the challenges of the child care and early education field in terms of professional training, hiring practices and retaining qualified staff. It provides an aspirational role model who has overcome these challenges by finding and recognizing new market opportunities.

This case is relevant for undergraduate and graduate courses in entrepreneurship.

This paper aims to develop a robust controller to control vibration of a thin plate attached with two piezoelectric patches in the presence of uncertainties in the mass of the plate. The main goal of this study is to tackle dynamic perturbation that could lead to modelling error in flexible structures. The controller is designed to suppress first and second modal vibrations.

Out of various robust control strategies, μ-synthesis controller design algorithm has been used for active vibration control of a simply supported thin place excited and actuated using two piezoelectric patches. Parametric uncertainty in the system is taken into account so that the robust system will be achieved by maximizing the complex stability radius of the closed-loop system. Effectiveness of the designed controller is validated through robust stability and performance analysis.

Results obtained from numerical simulation indicate that implementation of the designed controller can effectively suppress the vibration of the system at the first and second modal frequencies by 98.5 and 88.4 per cent, respectively, despite the presence of structural uncertainties. The designed controller has also shown satisfactory results in terms of robustness and performance.

Although vibration control in designing any structural system has been an active topic for decades, Ordinary fixed controllers designed based on nominal parameters do not take into account the uncertainties present in and around the system and hence lose their effectiveness when subjected to uncertainties. This paper fulfills an identified need to design a robust control system that accommodates uncertainties.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between perceived usefulness, ease of use and adoption of online banking by customers in the Indian context. Using the technology acceptance model (TAM) as the base, this study underscores the importance of perceived enjoyment, security and trust in influencing customer satisfaction.

Using a structured survey instrument, this paper gathered data from 476 respondents in the southern part of India. First, the instrument’s psychometric properties were tested, and hypotheses were tested using Hayes’s PROCESS macros.

The results indicated that (i) perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are positively related to the attitude of the consumers to use online banking, (ii) attitude to use is positively related to adoption intention and (iii) adoption intention positively predicts customer satisfaction. The results also reveal that (i) perceived enjoyment moderates the relationship between attitude to use and adoption intention, (ii) trust moderates the relationship between adoption intention and customer satisfaction and (iii) security (second moderator) moderates the moderated relationship between trust (first moderator) and adoption intention on customer satisfaction.

As with any survey research, self-report measures have the inherent problems of common method bias and social desirability bias. However, the authors have taken adequate care to minimize these limitations. In addition, the research has implications for consumer behavior concerned with online banking.

This study contributes to both practicing managers and the literature on online banking. The study suggests that bank managers need to focus on ensuring security and earning customers’ trust to motivate them to adopt online banking.

The study contributes to society by unraveling the antecedent conditions leading to accepting innovative changes initiated by banks. Especially in rural and cooperative banks, customers adopting online banking helps save their time and energy in visiting the physical locations of banks.

This study provides new insights into the complex relationships among variables contributing to customer satisfaction. The double-layered moderated moderated-mediation conceptual model developed and tested in this study is a novel idea that makes a significant contribution to the growing literature on online banking.

This paper aims to present a mass customization model for interior spaces of mass housing projects to provide solutions that will increase flexibility in accordance with different user needs.

The research project develops a model that generates an expert system that leads to different spatial variations. The expert system is based on the parameters that are determined depending on the findings of the field study done in the selected site. A modular system that allows different configurations is designed, and the expert system has made it possible to achieve a large number of spatial variations by means of a multi-parameter layout design. In the last phase, an interface is developed as a website that presents the spatial variations for each different user according to their response to the online questionnaire.

All the variations with the outputs obtained from the project are presented to the user through a digital interface, which functions as a website. In this sense, the model acts as a mass customization tool that brings together the needs of the inhabitants and provides specific solutions to them with all the outputs obtained from the project. The main objective of the interface is to provide the user with various interior layout alternatives and modular furniture that meet their needs.

The main originality of the research project is the development of a model that consists of different stages that works as a unique mass customization tool. The most significant specialty of the model is the constitution of an expert system in relation to the raw data obtained from the field study. This expert system generates spatial configurations by the help of the design parameters, and these parameters are mainly variables that differentiate the solutions according to the specific requirements of users in the selected site.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse the propensity to pay dividends and investigate whether the catering theory is valid in an emerging market.

The sample of this study comprises listed firms on the stock market of Turkey, Borsa Istanbul, with 2,438 observations during the period 1999–2015. In line with previous studies in the literature, appropriate control variables are used that may have an impact on Turkish firms' dividend policy. Control variables are examined in the likelihood of paying dividends by using Fama–Macbeth (1973) style cross-sectional logistic regressions. In addition, the linkage between the dividend premium and the propensity to pay is revealed to test the validity of the catering theory.

The findings of the study confirm the tenets of the catering theory for Turkey. When a positive dividend premium exists, that is when investors demand dividend, firms cater them and distribute dividend; on the contrary, when there is no demand, firms prefer not to pay. The effect of catering incentives on the dividend policy provides useful information for managers because the catering theory claims that investors' demand for dividends has an impact on the valuation of firms.

In the aftermath of the 2001 financial crisis, Turkey implemented far-reaching reforms and policy initiatives to improve the efficiency of capital markets and to overcome the obstacles sourcing from their culture and civil law origin. With the adoption of these major economic and structural reforms, as a civil law origin country, Turkey has managed to ameliorate the protection of investors as in common law countries. Ferris et al. (2009) state that the catering theory is applicable to firms in common law countries but not in civil law countries. In addition, prior research is not so extensive regarding the impact of catering incentives on the dividend policy of firms in emerging markets. The results of the analyses suggest that the catering theory is valid for Turkey as a civil law origin emerging country, and to the best of authors' knowledge, this study is the first to test the catering theory in the Turkish capital markets.

The purpose of this paper is to study the potential of alumina (Al₂O₃) in nanometer size in automotive brake friction materials.

Four brake linings containing alumina differing in particle size (355 µm and 80 nm) and various amount (5 and 10 Wt.%) were designed and produced. The hardness, density and porosity of the samples were measured. All samples were tested on a full-scale brake dynamometer with gray cast iron disc to determine the tribological properties. Detailed examinations on the worn surface were analyzed using a scanning electron microscopy.

It was concluded that all performance parameters were beneficially affected because of nano alumina.

This paper emphasizes the importance of nano-composites in the automotive industry and helps industrial firms and academicians working on wear of materials.

This paper aims to clarify the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in human society, based on the concept of muwālāt (commonly translated as “loyalty”) in the Qurʾān.

The present study follows a contextual and analytical methodology.

This paper concludes that muwālāt is not only ideological but can be contractual too. A historical study of the Prophet’s (PBUH) interaction with non-Muslims in Mecca and Medina illustrates that as long as non-Muslims did not behave treacherously or turn to violence, a peaceful relationship was established and alliances and coalitions were formed. And this paper concludes that the categorisation of previous Muslim scholars, which was is in terms of prohibited and permitted, is inappropriate.

This paper clarifies that the categorisation of previous Muslim scholars, which was in terms of prohibited and permitted, is inappropriate, and muwālāt is not only belongs to faith.