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The financial technology (FinTech) era has brought a revolutionary change in the financial sector’s customer experiences at the national and global levels. The importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of FinTech services for enriching customer experiences has become a new norm in this modern era of technological advancement. So, it becomes crucial to understand the customer’s perspective. The current research ranks the factors and sub-factors influencing customers’ perceptions of AI-based FinTech services.

The sample size for this study was decided to be 970 respondents from four Indian cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. The Fuzzy-AHP technique was used to identify the primary factors and sub-factors influencing customers’ experiences with AI-enabled finance services. The factors considered in the study were service quality, trust commitment, personalization, perceived convenience, relationship commitment, perceived sacrifice, subjective norms, perceived usefulness, attitude and vulnerability. The current research is both empirical and descriptive.

The study’s three top factors are service quality, perceived usefulness and perceived convenience, all of which have a significant impact on customers’ experience with AI-enabled FinTech services discussing sub-criteria three primary criteria for customers’ experience for FinTech services include: “Using FinTech would increase my effectiveness in managing a portfolio (A2)”, “My peer groups and friends have an impact on using FinTech services (SN3)” and “Using FinTech would increase my efficacy in administering portfolio (PU2)”.

The current study is limited to four Indian cities, with 10 factors to understand customers’ preferences in FinTech. Further research can focus on other dimensions like perceived ease of use, familiarity, etc. Future studies can have a broader view of different geographical locations and consider new tech to understand customer perceptions better.

The study’s findings will significantly assist businesses in determining the primary aspects influencing customers’ experiences with AI-enabled financial services. As a result, they will develop strategies and policies to entice clients to use AI-powered FinTech services.

Existing AI research investigated several vital topics in the context of FinTech services. On the other hand, the current study ranked the criteria in understanding customer experiences. The research will substantially assist marketers, business houses, academicians and practitioners in understanding essential facets influencing customer experience and contribute significantly to the literature.

Women involved in the carceral system (CS) experience several conditions that increase their risk for HIV (e.g. high rates of substance use, psychiatric disorders, histories of victimization). The purpose of this study is to explore perspectives on potential strategies to connect women in the CS to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) services.

This study conducted in-depth interviews with 27 women involved in the CS eligible for PrEP. Using vignettes, interviews explored attitudes, barriers and facilitators toward PrEP screening, referral and linkage facilitated via a CS stakeholder, an mHealth application or providing PrEP service referrals during detention via a navigator.

Most women were, on average, 41.3 years, from racial and ethnic minority groups (56% black/African American; 19% Latinx). Inductive thematic analysis revealed CS involved women expressed mostly positive attitudes toward CS-based PrEP implementation. Younger women were more accepting of and interested in mHealth interventions. Implementation facilitators included leveraging relationships with trusted allies (e.g. “peers”) and existing systems collaborations. Recommended implementation strategies included providing HIV and PrEP-specific education and training for system stakeholders and addressing issues related to privacy, system mistrust and stigma.

Results provide a critical foundation for the implementation of interventions to improve PrEP access for women involved in the CS and have important implications for implementation strategies for all adults involved in the CS. Improving access to PrEP among this population may also support progress toward addressing national disparities in PrEP uptake, where women, black and Latinx populations have substantial unmet need.

The present paper aims at the multi-objective optimization of a reentrant hexagonal cell auxetic structure. In addition, a parametric analysis will be carried out to verify how each of the design factors impact each of the responses.

The multi-objective optimization of five different responses of an auxetic model was considered: mass, critical buckling load under compression effort, natural frequency, Poisson's ratio and failure load. The response surface methodology was applied, and a new meta-heuristic of optimization called the multi-objective Lichtenberg algorithm was applied to find the optimized configuration of the model. It was possible to increase the failure load by 26.75% in compression performance optimization. Furthermore, in the optimization of modal performance, it was possible to increase the natural frequency by 37.43%. Finally, all 5 responses analyzed simultaneously were optimized. In this case, it was possible to increase the critical buckling load by 42.55%, the failure load by 28.70% and reduce the mass and Poisson's ratio by 15.97 and 11%, respectively. This paper addresses something new in the scientific world to date when evaluating in a multi-objective optimization problem, the compression and modal performance of an auxetic reentrant model.

It was possible to find multi-objective optimized structures. It was possible to increase the critical buckling load by 42.82%, and the failure load in compression performance by 26.75%. Furthermore, in the optimization of modal performance, it was possible to increase the natural frequency by 37.43%, and decrease the mass by 15.97%. Finally, all 5 responses analyzed simultaneously were optimized. In this case, it was possible to increase the critical buckling load by 42.55%, increase the failure load by 28.70% and reduce the mass and Poisson's ratio by 15.97 and 11%, respectively.

There is no work in the literature to date that performed the optimization of 5 responses simultaneously of a reentrant hexagonal cell auxetic structure. This paper also presents an unprecedented statistical analysis in the literature that verifies how the design factors impact each of the responses.

The Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) methodology is one of the most important to achieving excellence in an organization’s product development process. This paper aims to propose a roadmap for product development based on the DFSS for the consumer durables manufacturing industries. The proposed roadmap presents a systematic approach to the phases of the product development process, integrating the statistical techniques and quality tools that should be used in each phase.

This study presents a detailed roadmap for product development, which was built by identifying gaps in the DFSS methods, based on previous studies on the subject. In this step, the opportunities are provided in all phases from creation to discontinuation of the product in the market. In addition, the roadmap presented was validated by team of stakeholders in the product development process of different industrial companies.

The proposed roadmap for the product development process based on six sigma design suggests a visual tool with sequential steps and techniques that allow you to follow the evolution of the development process from idea conception until the product is discontinued in the market. Identifying the priorities of organizations, especially the consumer, regarding the quality and reliability of the product.

The roadmap seeks to facilitate an understanding of the important stages of the product development process and to provide an approach to improving and optimizing the product before the manufacturing process step through the principles of DFSS methodology. This research provides a guide step by step to apply statistical techniques and quality tools in the product development process to achieve high quality and six sigma level in the manufacturing process.

The proposed roadmap of this research combines design for sigma and product development concepts, covering a wide spectrum of relevant activities that include the product development process, the application of statistical techniques and the design of high-quality durable consumer goods to match manufacturing technologies.

This chapter locates our book in social science debates and critiques challenging ontological and epistemological assumptions underpinning researching approaches emanating from the global north. This is an important contextualising move, given that these debates have surfaced crucial understandings about the dangers of unquestioned assumptions underpinning researching approaches in intercultural and cross-cultural contexts. The chapter outlines how practice architectures, the key theoretical lens employed in this book, have attempted to counter these exclusions. It focusses on the theory’s emergence from the relational (political and material) work of the pedagogy, education, and praxis (PEP) network. This historicising move is part of our shared authorial commitment to rendering visible the taken-for-granted assumptions underpinning researching approaches, including those, such as practice architectures theory, that have a shared commitment to critical educational praxis. The final section of the chapter considers the possibilities and limitations of practice architectures theory as a means of challenging taken-for-granted ontological and epistemological assumptions of research and researching practices.

This study aims to identify the effect of soft skills as a driver of audit quality and their moderating role in the relationship between stress and the propensity for auditors to engage in reduced audit quality practices (RAQP).

This study uses a sample of 130 auditors, whose data were collected through an electronic questionnaire. The results were derived from the partial least squares-structural equation modelling method.

The findings show that the propensity to incur RAQP increases when auditors are under job stressors but decreases when individuals have resilience and time management skills. Moreover, the results suggest that the moderating effect of these two soft skills can effectively reduce the auditors’ propensity to engage in dysfunctional actions and judgments in auditing. Emotional intelligence and self-efficacy skills are shown not to affect RAQP.

This study adds to previous research on auditors’ drivers for supplying audit quality, by providing evidence of auditor characteristics as a critical input to audit quality. The results emphasize the importance of researchers including in models the moderating effect of soft skills on the relationship between audit quality and determinants associated with audit firms, clients or the regulatory framework.

Intrinsic values to the field of special education include advocacy, inclusivity, individuality, and empiricism. From early days of providing custodial care in segregated settings, special education has evolved into a program that seeks to educate students with a wide range of learning needs in inclusive settings and identify a robust research base that informs its policies and practices. Important concepts such as inclusion and continuum of services have not only been valuable in conceptualizing and in providing intervention for students with disabilities but have also been valuable in advancing the field. Research in special education and students with disabilities has been instrumental in moving the field forward. In the future, special education will continue to be valuable in supporting students whose learning and survival needs deviate from the norm in meaningful ways by delivering responsive evidence-based instruction.

The ever-changing educational landscape, exacerbated by recent events surrounding COVID, political and cultural unrest, necessitates educators who are antifragile, able to withstand pressures and thrive amidst uncertainty. To this end, the pilot study reported here aims to examine mathematics educators’ initial reflections on what it means to be a risk-taker in the classroom, what prevents them from engaging in instructional risks and what would support their instructional risk-taking.

The pilot study utilized interviews with participants, including four pre-service teachers who were enrolled at the university and seven in-service teachers who were employed on active PDS campuses within the school district.

Preliminary findings suggest teacher beliefs concerning risk-taking, the barriers to engaging in such behaviors and the support needed to be able to take instructional risks. Results highlight the role of school–university partnerships in cultivating a culture of risk-taking through active collaboration and dialogue.

These findings have important implications for universities and PDS partners engaged in preparing teachers for an educational field that is unpredictable and continually changing. Additional research should be completed in varying PDS settings.

Findings highlight the role of school–university partnerships in cultivating a culture of risk-taking through active collaboration and dialogue.

Educators are currently faced with an unprecedented instructional landscape. Antifragile, risk-taking teachers are needed who are adaptable and innovative, thus better equipped to enter the challenging and uncertain realities of education.

In these uncertain and risky times, the work that educators and educational researchers carry out may feel inconsequential. In preparing young people to live well in a world worth living in, educators must consider, firstly, what roles they can play in a global environment riven by volatile economic, social, and environmental contexts, and secondly, the responsibilities they bear as researchers to produce forms of understanding, modes of action, and ways of relating to one another and this world.

In this chapter, we introduce the pedagogy, education, and praxis (PEP) network and how it is that we, as researchers from around the world, came together to discuss our researching practices in coming to know and explore educational research problems concerning equity, diversity and social justice within and across different cultural settings. We share short stories of ourselves to reveal how it is that we have come to know, be, and act as researchers in our projects and how working alongside each other – our mutual relatings – have generated further understanding about our own and each other’s researching practices.

This chapter establishes the purpose of the book, where we share empirical work through the lens of practice architectures. For instance, what is considered to be an educational equity problem across international or cross-cultural sites? What are considered acceptable forms of evidence of coming to understand educational inequity in its diverse forms in different sites? How are taken-for-granted research practices enabling and/or constraining different forms of understandings about educational inequity, including the issues to be researched and/or the direction of the research project? We then provide an overview of the remaining chapters.

Sustainable management requires companies to build up new knowledge to acquire the competencies needed for action. This chapter aims to deliver knowledge about sustainability and knowledge for sustainability. Firstly, we systematically analyse the sustainability literature in the social sciences through a bibliographic analysis and topic modelling using VOSviewer and Mallet software. We outline research directions, themes and critical contributions for each research cluster identified. Additionally, we categorise over 30 definitions of sustainability identified by Meuer, Koelbel, and Hoffmann (2020). Secondly, we enumerate knowledge types needed for effective sustainability transitions of organisations. We trace typologies of sustainable business models and their distinct evaluations of sustainability. In this chapter, we argue that integrating the triad of social, ecological and economic goals is central for sustainability attempts as well as long-term thinking. Therefore, our research offers a comprehensive overview of sustainability in the social sciences supporting researchers and practitioners to navigate this miscellaneous and scattered field. Accordingly, our study is precious to young scholars researching sustainability who want to use the term in an informed and meaningful way.