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We develop a framework for measuring and monitoring business cycles in real time. Following a long tradition in macroeconometrics, inference is based on a variety of indicators of economic activity, treated as imperfect measures of an underlying index of business cycle conditions. We extend existing approaches by permitting for heterogenous lead–lag patterns of the various indicators along the business cycles. The framework is well suited for high-frequency monitoring of current economic conditions in real time – nowcasting – since inference can be conducted in the presence of mixed frequency data and irregular patterns of data availability. Our assessment of the underlying index of business cycle conditions is accurate and more timely than popular alternatives, including the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI). A formal real-time forecasting evaluation shows that the framework produces well-calibrated probability nowcasts that resemble the consensus assessment of the Survey of Professional Forecasters.

This chapter elaborates the concept of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and further validates the model for the sustainability of financial innovation using factors of e-payment system, adoption intention, trust and sustainability, and finally derives a model for the sustainability of the financial innovation using SEM. The chapter also presents Sustainability of E-payment System on Customer Perspective (SEPSCP) through segmentation approach.

This paper seeks to adopt FRBRoo as an ontological approach to integrate heterogeneous metadata, and transform human-understandable format into machine-understandable format for semantic query.

Two cases of use with museum artefacts and literary works were exploited to illustrate how FRBRoo can be used to re-contextualize the semantics of elements and the semantic relationships embedded in those elements. The shared ontology was then RDFized and examples were explored to examine the feasibility of the proposed approach.

FRBRoo can play a role as inter lingua aligning museum and library metadata to achieve heterogeneous metadata integration and semantic query without changing either of the original approaches to fit the other.

Exploration of more diverse use cases is required to further align the different approaches of museums and libraries using FRBRoo and make revisions.

Solid evidence is provided for the use of FRBRoo in heterogeneous metadata integration and semantic query.

This is the first study to elaborate how FRBRoo can play a role as a shared ontology to integrate the heterogeneous metadata generated by museums and libraries. This paper also shows how the proposed approach is distinct from the Dublin Core format crosswalk in re-contextualizing semantic meanings and their relationships, and further provides four new sub-types for mapping description language.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a three‐dimensional service house of quality (HOQ). The new service HOQ adds a dimension of quality economics to solve the problems of economic evaluation in the process of transferring customer requirements into service characteristics by traditional HOQ.

Based on the traditional two‐dimensional HOQ, this paper constructs a three‐dimension service HOQ by adding an economic dimension into the traditional structure, so that the transformation process from customer requirements into service characteristics can be evaluated with quality economic perspective. The key concern of this new model is to balance the quality improvement and economic gain of a service. The other improvement of this paper is that it uses structural equations to present the coefficient matrix in the new HOQ model to avoid human errors in the evaluation. A case study is used to verify the effectiveness of the new model.

Quality gains and costs should be considered in service design and quality improvement. The three‐dimensional service HOQ uses the dimension of quality economics to balance customer requirements and service characteristics, which is more effective than the traditional one.

The method exposed in the paper can be used by service companies for decision making in service design and quality improvement.

This paper establishes a new three‐dimensional HOQ, by which quality economics can be effectively analyzed in service design and quality improvement.

The study explored the effect of different factors affecting attitude formation towards Internet banking (online banking) in Finland. The purpose of this paper is to determine those factors that influence the formation of attitude towards Internet banking on the one hand, and their relation to the use of online banking services, on the other. To attain these, a large survey (1,167 responses) was carried out during the summer of 2000 in Finland. Attitude formation was studied by the use of a structural equation model. The results are expected to provide both theoretical and practical contributions in the area of electronic retail banking and understanding of consumer behaviour in the turbulent financial services industry.

Libraries need to develop information processing systems for evaluation, budgeting, planning, and operations. Electronic spreadsheets lend themselves to a variety of applications, but are time‐consuming to create. A model template and macros that can be used in many different types of library data analysis have been developed here. The procedures demonstrated here can build an essential set of tools for meeting fundamental goals of administrative efficiency, effective use of library resources, staff motivation, and rational policy making.

Trafficking¹ in human beings is gross.² It constitutes one of the most egregious violations of human rights.³ The vile nature of human trafficking is also hinged on the fact that it commodifies human beings. Hence its categorisation is modern slavery.⁴ So much of trafficking activities follow the pathways5 of other transnational forms of organised crimes and irregular cross-border movement of people.6 In response to this egregious crime, several international, regional and country laws and instruments have been used or proposed for combatting human trafficking.7 These instruments forbid trafficking in human persons and provide several preventive measures, prosecution of perpetrators and protection of victims of human trafficking.8 The number of state parties to the United Nations Protocol to prevent suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Protocol), demonstrates the global commitment to combatting human trafficking. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on legal systems, and the capacity of both state and private institutions to combat human trafficking, has added a knotty twist to the global problem of human trafficking. This essay looks at the trends of human trafficking in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also highlights international law and policy approaches that state parties and civil society organisations should adopt to counteract the changes and sustain the fight against human trafficking. Thus, the essay contributes to updating the legal and policy approaches to combat human trafficking in this era.

The purpose of the study is to identify the perceived lack of certain core knowledge, skills and attributes in external quality auditors (EQAs) that contributes to an audit process that does not add value for client organizations. This paper describes the development of a competency requirement framework for quality management system (QMS) EQAs that would improve their capability and audit performance.

A review of relevant international literature on auditor competence and education, clients' expectations on external auditors, explicit and implicit expectations based on ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 19011:2018, and current auditor capability was conducted to obtain insights into the present situation and requirements of the environment. A survey questionnaire was then utilized in the collection of data from 19 heads of certification and technical reviewers of accredited certification bodies (CBs) in Malaysia. Univariate and bivariate analysis were used in analyzing the data from respondents.

The overall results show that the most important components of knowledge for EQAs to possess are quality management principles, system and standards; risk management; and business process and operations management. In terms of skills, the most important skills for auditors are auditing and report writing and critical/analytical thinking, followed by communication/interpersonal/people/ICT and team management. Attributes such as integrity, being ethical, professional and objective are found to be most important in EQAs to be effective and add value to the audits. Based on the results, the competency requirement framework of EQAs was developed.

This paper presents the knowledge, skills, attitudes and experience needed by EQAs identified by the CBs which is then developed into a competency requirements framework for future auditor training. The resulting framework from the study can be used by accreditation bodies, CBs and training organizations to evaluate and improve the auditors' competence and audit performance in the future.

The purpose of this article is to investigate how social integration, immigrant networks and barriers to ventureing affect the entrepreneurial activities of Brazilians in Canada, indicating how mixed embeddedness takes place in that context.

Data were collected in Toronto, through the application of a survey with 74 Brazilian entrepreneur respondents and 42 semi-structured interviews with selected subjects, thus representing a multi-method approach. The analysis included descriptive statistics from the survey data and a qualitative analysis of the trajectories and life stories of Brazilian immigrants.

Our sample comprises respondents with a high level of education and proficiency in English, coming predominantly from the southeast of Brazil, white, aged from 30 to 49. The majority of businesses are small and related to the service sector. The article contributes to the literature by discussing the elements related to mixed embeddedness, including the need for cultural adaptation and for the creation of networks as a crucial element for business venturing.

The study focuses on entrepreneurs regardless of their businesses sector or formality/informality status. It could be used as an instrument to support Canadian public policies for welcoming Brazilians and for the Brazilian government to prevent the evasion of potential entrepreneurs.

The article contributes to the body of knowledge of immigrant entrepreneurship in Canada and of Brazilian entrepreneurship overseas. The results suggest factors that may be relevant to the expansion of their business, such as social networking, cultural embeddedness and adaptation of the products/services to a wider range of target customers.