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This study aims to intend toward the measurement of corporate governance to identify its maturity levels within Omani public listed companies and also propose to identify whether corporate governance maturity (CGM) levels vary significantly between sectors or not. CGM is an innovation in the field of corporate governance, which assists organizations in achieving their objectives and satisfying shareholders.

This study used descriptive cross-sectional survey design. Data are collected by the internet-based tool and analyzed via SPSS.

This study found that corporate governance is measurable and can be measured to the levels of maturity. Moreover, this study identified that CGM does not differ among different sectors. From a total of 107 organizations, none of the organizations falls under the forming level and mature level. However, majority of organizations falls under normalized level followed by developing and established levels of maturity.

This study integrates significant empirical research and literature to broaden the potentials of CGM. This study provides a framework along with a calculation tool, which can be used by organizations, regulators and policymakers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the maturity levels of Omani organizations are never being measured before. Moreover, past studies demonstrate single constituent relationship with CGM and not all four. Therefore, this study is distinctive from others by testing all four major components or constituents toward CGM.

Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) is a notable invention introduced in the biomedical industry. It provides valuable information about intermittent capillary blood glucose that is normally unattainable by regular clinical blood sample tests. CGM includes several progressive facilities such as instantaneous and real-time display of blood glucose level, “24/7” coverage, continuous motion of alerts for actual or impending hypo- and hyperglycemia and the ability to characterize glycemic variability. CGM allows users and physicians to visualize and diagnose more accurate and precise rate of change of glucose by capacitating small, comfortable, user-friendly sensor devices. Sometimes, this vital information is shared to the personal message box over Internet. In short, CGM is capable to inform, educate, motivate and alert (IEMA) people with diabetes. Despite the huge expectation with CGM, the available solutions have not attracted much attention among people. The huge potential of CGM in future diabetic study relies on the successful implication of the CGM. This paper aims at disseminating of state-of-the-art knowledge about existing work around the CGM.

This paper presents a comprehensive systematic review on the recent developments in CGM development techniques that have been reported in credible sources, namely PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, Springer Link, Scopus and Google Scholar. Detailed analysis and systematic comparison are provided to highlight the achievement and future direction of CGM deployment.

Several key challenges are also portrayed for suitable opportunistic orientation. CGM solutions from four leading manufacturers such as Tandem, Dexcom, Abbott and Medtronic are compared based on the following factors including accuracy (% MARD); sensor lifetime, calibration requirement, smart device, compatibility and remote monitoring. Qualitative and quantitative analyses are performed.

This work can be a valuable source of reference and guidance for future research in this field.

This study aims to analyzes the effects of the consumer-generated media (CGM) boom on hotel managers’ investment behavior concerning quality signals.

Survival analysis has been conducted, considering the permanence/dropout of the Spanish hotels in a quality certification system during the 1998–2020 period.

The number of hotels certified since 2010 has been progressively falling, pointing to a decreasing interest of the managers in these certifications. Nevertheless, this is not a generalized phenomenon: the hotel characteristics and the number and nature of reviews about them in CGM significantly affect their permanence decisions in certification systems.

The findings provide several keys to optimizing investment management in quality signals considering hotel characteristics and their positioning in CGM.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the relationship between the presence of hotels in CGM and their investments in alternative quality signals. The results will allow future investment decisions based on previous real business experiences.

This study aims to examine the relationships between stimuli of website experience (information/content, interactive features and design–visual appeal) and online engagement (cognitive processing, affection and activation) with consumer-generated media and brand advocacy. Furthermore, this study examines if online engagement mediates the relationships between website stimuli of experience dimensions and brand advocacy.

A total of 183 valid online questionnaires were collected, from members of an online forum related to travel and leisure, to empirically test the measurement and structural model using partial least square path modeling. The study sample includes consumers who search for, select and book hotel rooms via Booking.com.

The findings confirm that information/content and design–visual appeal have a significant impact on all three dimensions of online engagement whereas interactive features of a website have significant impact on affection and activation. Furthermore, results suggest that affection and activation predict brand advocacy and engagement mediates the effect of stimuli of experience on brand advocacy.

This is the first attempt to explain the relationships between website stimuli of experience (information/content, interactive features and design–visual appeal), online engagement (cognitive processing, affection and activation) and brand advocacy. Altogether, these variables are not well studied and understood in current literature despite having important implications for managers, academicians and consumers alike.

本论文旨在检验网站体验卖点（信息/内容、互动功能、设计-视觉吸引力）、对消费者自发媒介（CGM）的在线参与（理性思维方面、情感感性方面、和行动力方面）、以及品牌拥护的关系。此外, 本论文还检验在线顾客参与是否从中调节了网站体验卖点和品牌拥护的关系, 从而变成了中间变量。

本论文采用在线问卷采样形式, 一家在线旅游网站的成员为问卷样本, 有效样本数量为183份。本论文采用偏最小二乘回归的样本数据分析方法来分析数据。其中样本是从Booking.com搜索、选择、预定酒店的消费者。

信息/内容和网站设计-视觉吸引力对三种在线顾客参与的维度都有显著作用。而网站的互动性只对在线顾客参与的情感感性维度和行动力维度上有显著作用。此外, 研究结果还证明感性参与和参与行动促进品牌拥护, 因此, 在线参与成为网上体验卖点和品牌拥护的中间变量。

本论文是仅有几篇解释网站体验卖点（信息/内容、互动功能、和设计-视觉吸引力）与在线参与（理性思维方面、情感感性方面、和行动力方面）和品牌拥护之间关系的文章之一。总而言之, 这些变量还处在研究前沿阶段, 现有文献尚未全面研究这些变量, 尽管它们对于管理者、学者、以及消费者有着很重要的意义。

信息/内容、互动功能、设计-视觉吸引力、在线参与、品牌拥护

研究论文

The purpose of this paper is to develop a numerical model for estimating the unknown boundary heat flux in a parallel plate channel for the case of a hydrodynamically and thermally developing laminar flow.

The conjugate gradient method (CGM) is used to solve the inverse problem. The momentum equations are solved using an in-house computational fluid dynamics (CFD) source code. The energy equations along with the adjoint and sensitivity equations are solved using the finite volume method.

The effects of number of measurements, distribution of measurements and functional form of unknown flux on the accuracy of estimations are investigated in this work. The prediction of boundary flux by the present algorithm is found to be quite reasonable.

It is noticed from the literature review that study of inverse problem with hydrodynamically developing flow has not received sufficient attention despite its practical importance. In the present work, a hydrodynamically and thermally developing flow between two parallel plates is considered and unknown transient boundary heat flux at the upper plate of a parallel plate channel is estimated using CGM.

The purpose of this paper is to present novel search formulations in gradient‐type methods for prediction of boundary heat flux distribution in two‐dimensional nonlinear heat conduction problems.

The performance of gradient‐type methods is strongly contingent upon the effective determination of the search direction. Based on the definition of this parameter, gradient‐based methods such as steepest descent, various versions of both conjugate gradient and quasi‐Newton can be distinguished. By introducing new search techniques, several examples in the presence of noise in data are studied and discussed to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the present strategies.

The verification of the proposed methods for recovering time and space varying heat flux. The performance of the proposed methods via comparisons with the classical methods involved in its derivation.

The innovation of the present method is to use a hybridization of a conjugate gradient and a quasi‐Newton method to determine the search directions in gradient‐based approaches.

This paper aims to explore the relationships between website quality – through consumer-generated media stimuli-, emotions and consumer-brand engagement in online environments.

Two independent studies are conducted to examine these relationships. Study 1, based on a sample of 366 respondents, uses a structural equation modelling approach to test the research hypotheses. Study 2, based on 1,454 online consumer reviews, uses text-mining technique to examine further the relationship between emotions and consumer-brand engagement.

The findings show that all the consumer-generated media stimuli are positively related to the dimensions of emotions. However, only pleasure and arousal are positively related to the three variables of consumer-brand engagement. The findings also show cognitive processing as the strongest dimension of consumer-brand engagement providing positive sentiments towards brands.

The findings provide marketers with an understanding of how valid, useful and relevant content (i.e. information/content) creates a greater emotional connection and drive consumer-brand engagement. Marketers should be aware that consumer-generated media stimuli influence consumers’ emotions and their reaction.

This study is one of the firsts to adapt and apply the S-O-R framework in explaining online consumer-brand engagement. This study also adds to the brand engagement literature as the first study that combines PLS-SEM approach with text-mining analysis to provide a better understanding of these relationships.

Given the importance of performance consistency of chain hotels in customers’ decision-making and service evaluation, this study aims to explore how consistently chain hotel brands offer quality service and carry out their performance from the eyes of customers through online reviews on TripAdvisor of the top five US hotel chains (i.e. Choice, Hilton, InterContinental, Marriott and Wyndham) and their brands.

The research objectives were achieved through methodological triangulation: business intelligence, data visualization analytics and statistical analyses. First, the data collection and pre-processing of consumer-generated media (CGM) (i.e. TripAdvisor online reviews) were performed using business intelligence for further analyses. Using data visualization analytics (i.e. box-and-whisker plot by region and brand), the geographic patterns of performance attributes (i.e. online review ratings, including location, sleep, cleanliness, room and service) were depicted. Using a series of analyses of variance and regression analyses, the results were further assessed for the impacts of brand performance inconsistency on consumers’ perceived value, sentiment and satisfaction.

The empirical results demonstrate that there are significant performance inconsistencies in performance attributes (location, sleep, cleanliness, room and service) by brands throughout the six regions in the US hotel market. More importantly, the findings confirm that brand performance consistency significantly influences consumers’ perceived service quality (i.e. perceived value, satisfaction and sentiment).

This study is one of the first attempts to empirically explore hotel brand performance consistency in the US hotel market from customer reviews on CGM. To measure hotel brand performance in the US hotel market, this study collected and analyzed user-generated big data for the top 5 US hotel chains through business intelligence, visualization analytics and statistical analysis. These integrated and novel research methods would help tourism and hospitality researchers analyze big data in an innovative data analytics approach. The findings of the study contribute to the tourism and hospitality field by confirming hotel brand performance inconsistency and such inconsistent performance affected customers’ service evaluations.

This study demonstrates the significant impact of hotel brand performance consistency on consumers’ perceived value, emotion and satisfaction. Considering that online reviews are perceived as a credible source of information, the findings suggest that the hotel industry pays special attention to brand performance consistency to improve consumers’ perceived value, emotion and satisfaction.

The present study aims to summarize different non-invasive techniques for continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in diabetic patients using glucose-oxidase biosensors. In diabetic patients, the self-monitoring of blood glucose (BG) levels through minimally invasive techniques provides a quick method of measuring their BG concentration, unlike conventional laboratory measurements. The drawbacks of minimally invasive techniques include physical pain, anxiety and reduced patient compliance. To overcome these limitations, researchers shifted their attention towards the development of a pain-free and non-invasive glucose monitoring system, which showed encouraging results.

This study reviews the development of minimally and non-invasive method for continuous glucose level monitoring in diabetic or hyperglycemic patients. Specifically, glucose monitoring using non-invasive techniques, such as spectroscopy-based methods, polarimetry, fluorescence, electromagnetic variations, transdermal extraction-based methods and using body fluids, has been discussed. The various strategies adopted for improving the overall specificity and performance of biosensors are discussed.

In conclusion, the technology of glucose oxidase-based biosensors for glucose level monitoring is becoming a strong competitor, probably because of high specificity and selectivity, low cost and increased patient compliance. Many industries currently working in this field include Google, Novartis and Microsoft, which demonstrates the significance and strong market potential of self-monitored glucose-oxidase-based biosensors in the near future.

This review paper summarizes comprehensive strategies for continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in diabetic patients using non-invasive glucose-oxidase biosensors. Non-invasive techniques received significant research interest because of high sensitivity and better patient compliance, unlike invasive ones. Although the results from these innovative devices require frequent calibration against direct BG data, they might be a preferable candidate for future CGM. However, the challenges associated with designing accurate level sensors to biomonitor BG data easily and painlessly needs to be addressed.

The purpose of this paper is to assist ocean container carriers in their service quality improvement strategies to ensure breakthrough performance in India.

A total of seven container carriers have been involved in this study. To explore the list of service criteria, reviews of transportation literature, customer satisfaction survey questionnaires of container carriers, SERVQUAL battery, telephonic interviews and focus groups were conducted. For data collection, a shipper satisfaction questionnaire was administered. After data collection, a mean score analysis using SPSS 15 was taken up to assess the present service performance levels of the select container carriers. Then a performance gap analysis was carried out using the gap analysis formula found in the benchmarking literature.

Out of the 48 service criteria which decide the service quality of ocean container carriers, Maersk is the top performer in respect of 23 criteria, both Hanjin and MSC are top in eight criteria each, Evergreen is top in five criteria, APL is top in four criteria and CMA CGM is top in two criteria. Hapag has not scored top in any of the criteria. The gap analysis shows that APL needs to improve 44 areas in which it has shown negative gaps, CMA CGM needs to improve 47 criteria, Evergreen 45 criteria, Hanjin 47 criteria, Hapag 48 criteria, Maersk 40 criteria and MSC 43 criteria to become excellent.

This paper has enabled container carriers to understand the list of criteria that decide their service quality in the Indian container carrier industry. It has also informed them of their present service performance levels, and their areas of strengths and weakness. This will help them in efficient resource allocation. Understanding the areas and sizes of negative gaps, they can take appropriate steps to close them and become excellent.

This is the first service quality improvement study undertaken in the Indian container carrier industry and it has opened up enormous scope for future research.