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The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between the application of smart electronic systems, firm characteristics and efficient energy consumption: a case of public universities in Uganda.

The study adopted both quantitative and qualitative approach as well as descriptive cross-sectional survey design tantamounting to an experimental-observation approach. A sample of four public academic universities were explored using primary data. A semi-structured questionnaire together with an evaluation form and a tested experimental kit (from one of the leading electronics centres in Uganda) was used to examine the consumption rates of different electronic appliances of less than 30 Amps. Further, a Pearson product moment correlation (r) analysis was also used to determine the direction of a relationship among the variables together with a linear relationship (regression) to predict a linear association of one or more variables. Recommendations were also given.

Smart electronic systems make a significant determining factor to both firm characteristics (age, number of students, administrative staff and support staff) as well as efficient energy consumption. Nonetheless, there is no significant difference of efficient energy consumption as far as firm characteristics are concerned.

Results support the contributions of the theory of technology and acceptance model by affirming that a number of factors influence the usefulness and ease of use of the smart electronic systems, which in turn influence energy consumption.

Universities' management should endeavour to install smart electronic systems. But still, government should try to lower taxes on smart electronic systems and genuine agents should be named for easy and affordable access of the users, universities inclusive.

The study contributes towards a theoretical position by affirming the usefulness of technology acceptance model for efficient energy consumption in public universities.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-02-2019-0083

This study investigates taxpayers’ perception to the Jordanian tax system efficiency according to the perspective of Keynes. Its main purpose is to determine whether taxpayers perceive the Jordanian tax system as efficient, enough to influence taxpayers’ patterns of behavior, or inefficient and just used to collect revenue by the government. A self‐administered questionnaire is used to collect the primary data of the study, in order to measure the economical and socio‐cultural efficiency of the system. A convenience sample consisting of 175 respondents was selected to survey how taxpayers perceive the Jordanian tax system efficiency. The t‐test is used as a decision criterion for the acceptance or rejection of the hypotheses. Correlation analysis is also used to support the findings of the study. The study finds that taxpayers perceive the Jordanian tax system as efficient, and they perceive that the tax system is intentionally used to influence their behavior.

Estimates show that close to 90% of the buildings we will need in 2050 are already built and occupied. The increase in the existing building stock has affected energy consumption thereby negatively impacting the environment. The purpose of this paper is to assess determinants of sustainable upgrade of existing buildings through the adoption and application of sustainable technologies. The study also ranks sustainable technologies adopted by the professionals who participated in the survey with an in-built case study.

As part of the overall methodology, a detailed literature review on the nature and characteristics of sustainable upgrade and the sustainable technologies adopted was undertaken. A survey questionnaire with an in-built case study was designed to examine all the sustainable technologies adopted to improve energy consumption in Australia. The survey was administered to sustainability consultants, architects, quantity surveyors, facility managers and engineers in Australia.

The results show a total of 24 technologies which are mostly adopted to improve energy consumption in existing buildings. A factor analysis shows the main components as: lighting and automation, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HAVC) systems and equipment, envelope, renewable energy and passive technologies.

The findings bridge the gap in the literature on the adoption and application of sustainable technologies to upgrade existing buildings. The technologies can be adopted to reduce the excessive energy consumption patterns in existing buildings.

After the precipitated decline of the Soviet Empire and its satellite states, a system change seemed to be called for, and many countries embarked on social and political reforms focussing on property structures in the economy. This raised the issue of governance in the institutions that would constitute the structures in which production would have to take place. In particular, some Central European countries opted for mass privatisations of the means of production, on the face of it so as to have the people participate in the wealth of the nation. In fact, the wealth of the nation depends on the structures in which it is constituted. Dissipation of property rights will reduce the value of the nation's productive capital, whereas an intelligent structure that creates good governance structures at the same time, increases the value of the producing capital. This relatively simple insight lies at the heart of our understanding of how to analyse different processes of mass privatisation. This essay develops a theoretical framework by which different governance structures can be analysed. The framework consists of a blend of the economic theory of property rights, new institutional economics and Austrian economic theory.

Current e-learning platforms are based on relational database management systems (RDBMS) and are well suited for handling structured data. However, it is expected from e-learning solutions to efficiently handle unstructured data as well. The purpose of this paper is to show an alternative to current solutions for unstructured data management.

Current repository-based solution for file management was compared to MongoDB architecture according to their functionalities and characteristics. This included several categories: data integrity, hardware acquisition, processing files, availability, handling concurrent users, partition tolerance, disaster recovery, backup policies and scalability.

This paper shows that it is possible to improve e-learning platform capabilities by implementing a hybrid database architecture that incorporates RDBMS for handling structured data and MongoDB database system for handling unstructured data.

The study shows an acceptable adoption of MongoDB inside a service-oriented architecture (SOA) for enhancing e-learning solutions.

This research enables an efficient file handling not only for e-learning systems, but also for any system where file handling is needed.

It is expected that future single/joint e-learning initiatives will need to manage huge amount of files and they will require effective file handling solution. The new architecture solution for file handling is offered in this paper: it is different from current solutions because it is less expensive, more efficient, more flexible and requires less administrative and development effort for building and maintaining.

This study aims at evaluating the technical efficiency (TE) of healthcare systems in the Arab region and exploring the key factors that affect the efficiency performance.

The study applies a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to a sample of 20 Arab countries. In the first stage, a DEA model is used to calculate the TE scores of the examined healthcare systems in 2019 and 2010, following both the output and input orientations of efficiency. In the second stage, a censored Tobit model is estimated to investigate the determinants of healthcare efficiency.

DEA results of 2019 indicate that achievable efficiency gains of the Arab countries range from 0.4% to 16% under the output and input orientations, respectively. Six countries are efficient under both orientations. Although the average efficiency scores of the Arab countries have deteriorated between 2010 and 2019, Djibouti and Sudan had the greatest efficiency improvements between the two years. Bahrain, Mauritania, Morocco and Qatar proved to be efficient in 2010 and 2019 under the two orientations of efficiency and according to the two DEA specifications followed. The Tobit model reveals that corruption and government health expenditure tend to have an adverse impact on healthcare efficiency.

The author evaluates healthcare efficiency and healthcare's efficiency determinants in the Arab countries. Regardless Arab countries' diversity, these countries are facing common health challenges, including diminishing role of governments in healthcare financing; increased out-of-pocket healthcare spending; poor healthcare outputs and prevalence of health inequities resulting from weak governance institutions. Comparing the efficiency of healthcare systems between 2010 and 2019 gives insights on the potential impact of the Arab spring uprisings on healthcare efficiency. Moreover, examining the determinants of healthcare efficiency allows for better understanding of how to improve the efficiency of healthcare systems in the region.

Internet of Things (IoT) is an up-and-coming conception that intends to link multiple devices with each other. The aim of this study is to provide a significant analysis of Green IoT. The IoT devices sense, gather and send out significant data from their ambiance. This exchange of huge data among billions of devices demands enormous energy. Green IoT visualizes the concept of minimizing the energy consumption of IoT devices and keeping the environment safe.

This paper attempts to analyze diverse techniques associated with energy-efficient protocols in green IoT pertaining to machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. Here, it reviews 73 research papers and states a significant analysis. Initially, the analysis focuses on different contributions related to green energy constraints, especially energy efficiency, and different hierarchical routing protocols. Moreover, the contributions of different optimization algorithms in different state-of-the-art works are also observed and reviewed. Later the performance measures computed in entire contributions along with the energy constraints are also checked to validate the effectiveness of entire contributions. As the number of contributions to energy-efficient protocols in IoT is low, the research gap will focus on the development of intelligent energy-efficient protocols to build up green IoT.

The analysis was mainly focused on the green energy constraints and the different robust protocols and also gives information on a few powerful optimization algorithms. The parameters considered by the previous research works for improving the performance were also analyzed in this paper to get an idea for future works. Finally, the paper gives some brief description of the research gaps and challenges for future consideration that helps during the development of an energy-efficient green IoT pertaining to M2M communication.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first work that reviews 65 research papers and states the significant analysis of green IoT.

In the face of escalating urban populations, the quest for seamless mobility in cities becomes increasingly complex, even in regions where transit options are presumably accessible within the developing world. The imperative to confront urban mobility challenges and forge sustainable cities equipped with adept transportation and traffic management systems cannot be overstated. This study delves into the technological paradigms employed by developed nations and evaluates their pertinence in the current milieu for mitigating urban mobility challenges. Simultaneously, it scrutinizes the deployment of smart city technologies (SCTs) within developing nations, investigating potential technological strides that can be harnessed to achieve sustainable urban transportation. By dissecting the intricacies of SCTs in developing countries, the study aims to unearth viable technological advancements that can be judiciously implemented to foster sustainable urban mobility. It aspires to provide nuanced recommendations for the integration of latent SCTs, unlocking untapped potential to augment the sustainability of urban transportation in the developing world. The research also elucidates strategies geared towards fostering international collaborations which are instrumental in propelling the development of cities characterized by equity and inclusivity. The study underscores the significance of a global alliance in overcoming urban challenges, emphasizing the need for shared knowledge, resources and experiences to propel the evolution of cities towards a more sustainable and equitable future. This research serves as a comprehensive exploration of the intricate interplay between technology, urbanization and international cooperation, offering insights and recommendations pivotal to steering the trajectory of urban development in developing nations.

As state funding for public higher education has declined, there is a rising demand for accountability. Past studies have relied on indicator ratios to look at the relationship between funding and performance measures. This approach has some inherent problems that make it difficult to identify inefficiencies. This chapter will study efficiency in state systems of higher education by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA). DEA methodology converts multiple variables into a single comprehensive measure of performance efficiency and has the ability to perform benchmarking for the purpose of establishing performance goals. The advantages of DEA modeling will be shown by comparing results with those from a recent study of higher education finance based on publicly available data. DEA is shown to be feasible and implementable for studying state systems of higher education, and provides useful information in identifying “best practice” state systems and guidance for improvement. The value of DEA modeling to state policy makers and education researchers is discussed.

This paper aims to focus on the decision-making process of integrated system design. Buildings can benefit from different system integration working toward the unified goal of providing the needed conditions and improving the comfort level of occupants. It is important to engage all system needs and priorities in the design by keeping goal into consideration. Even though there is vast potential in the coordination of system design decisions, there is a need to increase the transparency of the decision-making process by developing methods to incorporate multi-dimensional design attributes.

This is achieved by considering all system design priorities with respect to decision attributes, as well as the inter-system inputs based on information and knowledge. Data were collected through interviews, collaboration meetings and design document reviews, which helped to facilitate triangulation.

This paper presents the findings of a case study of deep retrofit design process that seeks to reduce energy consumption through integrated system decisions with several system combinations. In addition, such design decisions highlighted the fact that the values need to be flexible at the system level.

This paper presents an in-depth analysis of a single case study. Multiple case studies are being investigated for the future of this research.

This paper presents the methods used for integrated design process priorities that will enable design teams to make decisions that lead to improved energy performance in retrofit projects.

The case study building in this paper is a showcase building with cutting edge technologies and techniques, as well as a scalable and collaborative design process. It is an example of a best-in-class retrofit process designed through whole building design principles within the target budget. The paper demonstrates system design selection criteria that are embraced by value prioritization.