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▪ Perform relevant analysis (financial and non-financial) related to investment decision-making.

▪ Make decision based on the analysis.

Jade Sdn. Bhd. (JADE), since its establishment, has been mainly involved in providing services in facility management and cleaning services. Apart from these main services, JADE was also involved in hospitality management, travel and tours, and agribusiness. The current involvements were already varied, and the Board was thinking of furthering the diversification activity to generate more revenues. As the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of JADE, Ahmad was required to conduct the necessary analysis and provide his recommendation to the Board whether JADE should proceed with the purchase of Tulip Garden Hotel (TULIP). He had one month to act before proposing his recommendation to the Board.

Undergraduate and Postgraduate

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

The study examined the influence of environmental standards set by the SME agro-based processing firms and farmers' environmental empowerment on farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices; and the mediating role of empowerment on the relationship between SME agro-based processing firm environmental standards and farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices.

Data was collected from purchasing managers of the agro-based processing firms. The SPSS software, SMART PLS and CB-SEM software were used to obtain results on the influence of environmental standards set by the SME agro-based processing firms on adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices; the influence of farmers' environmental empowerment on adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices and the mediating role of farmers' environmental empowerment on the relationship between SME agro-based processing firm environmental standards and farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices.

Findings indicated that SME agro-processing environmental standards have an influence on farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices. Empowering farmers in environmental issues influenced their adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices. A partial mediation effect was observed on testing the mediating role of farmers' environmental empowerment on the relationship between SME agro-based processing firm environmental standards and farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly practices.

The study mainly focused on the upstream part of agricultural supply chains. The research has implications to decision-makers in government concerned with enhancing environmentally friendly practices among farmers in general.

The influence of SME agro-based processing firm environmental standards on farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices; the influence of farmers' environmental empowerment on farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly practices; and the mediating role of farmers' environmental empowerment on the relationship between SME agro-based processing firm environmental standards and farmers' adoption of environmentally friendly agricultural practices are aspects that have not been given significant attention.

This paper aims to solve the problems of big data analytics for prediction including volume, veracity and velocity by improving the prediction result to an acceptable level and in the shortest possible time.

This paper is divided into two parts. The first one is to improve the result of the prediction. In this part, two ideas are proposed: the double pruning enhanced random forest algorithm and extracting a shared learning base from the stratified random sampling method to obtain a representative learning base of all original data. The second part proposes to design a distributed architecture supported by new technologies solutions, which in turn works in a coherent and efficient way with the sampling strategy under the supervision of the Map-Reduce algorithm.

The representative learning base obtained by the integration of two learning bases, the partial base and the shared base, presents an excellent representation of the original data set and gives very good results of the Big Data predictive analytics. Furthermore, these results were supported by the improved random forests supervised learning method, which played a key role in this context.

All companies are concerned, especially those with large amounts of information and want to screen them to improve their knowledge for the customer and optimize their campaigns.

Alzheimer’s is the most commonly occurring neurodegenerative disease and progressive cognitive impairment is its major symptom due to which the patients tend to wander and get lost in unfamiliar places. This is a constant cause of worry for caretakers and a source of distress to the patients themselves. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper presents a low-cost, autonomous, embedded systems-based wearable device for real-time location tracking using GPS and the concept of geo-fencing. The system provides real-time updates in the form of a text message sent to the mobile number of a family member or caregiver.

An alert is sent whenever the patient moves out of a certain “safe zone” area and sends subsequent updates after every 5 min of such an event. The system supports caregivers of patients with early and moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s patients are prone to disorientation, confusion and tend to wander off. Since the device eliminates the need for the patients to operate it and is instead at the discretion of the system itself, the chances of it failing to help are minimized. Hence, with this project, the authors address the need for an autonomous device that can assist caretakers in tracking Alzheimer’s patients.

The various existing technologies that are in use now for tracking are often high in price, not tailored to Alzheimer’s and are non-autonomous. To overcome this, the authors utilized easily accessible technology into developing this system, which not only be affordable, but also addresses the major flaw in existing systems – which is that they rely on being operated by the patients themselves.

Modern lifestyle changes led to increased dental care needs in India. Consequently, there has been a sharp rise in dentist numbers. Karnataka state alone produces 2,500 dentists annually, who are engaged in the non‐government sector owing to inadequate public sector opportunities. This article aims to assess Karnataka private dental clinic quality and efficiency.

Dentists were interviewed using a close‐ended, structured interview schedule and their clinics were assessed using a checklist adopted from guidelines for providing machinery and equipment under the National Oral Health Care Programme (NOHCP). Dental “hotel” and clinical quality were scored based on this checklist.

Clinical quality was “excellent” in 12 per cent of clinics and poor in 49 per cent. Clinics with better infrastructure charged higher price (p<0.05). Multi‐chair clinics charging fixed rates were high (81 per cent). According to 59.5 per cent of dentists, competition did not improve quality while 27 per cent felt that competition increased price, not quality. About 30.9 per cent of the poor quality clinics, 41 per cent average quality clinics and 26 per cent good quality clinics were technically efficient.

The multi chair clinics offered better quality at higher prices and single chair clinics provided poorer quality at lower prices. In other words, they had a sub‐optimal price‐quality mix. Therefore, there is a need to regulate price and quality in all clinics to arrive at an optimal price‐quality mix so that clients are not overburdened financially even while receiving good quality dental care.

The article advocates that resources are used optimally as a way to achieve value for money and to achieve break‐even points thereby providing quality care in a competitive market. Factors that influence dental practitioner behaviour are evaluated.

Every shock, starting from the banking sector reform in 1992 to the global crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic, affects the performance of banks. The shocks and transformations jeopardise the bank’s performance. This study cover period of 30 years starting from 1992. So, the reason behind taking only public sector banks is that after 1991–92 many banking sector reforms took place, and many new private sector banks and foreign sector banks entered into competition due to the liberalization, privatization, globalization (LPG) policy. So, it has been difficult for public sector bank to manage their performance in a competitive market. So, the purpose of this study is to find out influencing factors of bank performance especially public sector bank, because, it has been vital to identify factors influencing their performance.

The current study explores the determinant of the performance of public sector banks in India. Currently, in India, 12 banks are public sector banks, which capture 59.8% market share in the banking industry. After 1994 new licences were issued by Reserve Bank of India for many banks, and foreign sector banks entered the market as an effect of LPG policy, and market competition is one of the significant determinants of the performance of banks. Thus, the panel regression model is used to analyse the impact of various determinants on the performance of public sector banks (from 1992 to 2021). Return on equity and return on assets are used as indicators of performance, whereas influencing factors are divided into two parts, bank-specific factors, which include bank size, asset quality (AQ), liquidity, credit deposit ratio (CDR), capital adequacy, debt-equity ratio, employee’s productivity and macroeconomic factors which include inflation rate, tax rate and gross domestic product (GDP).

Results of the study show that bank size is not an essential factor for measuring bank performance because it is insignificant with both indicators of performance. AQ, liquidity ratio and CDR are significant in both models with negative impact. Macroeconomic factors like GDP are insignificant with both indicators with positive relations and tax rates are significant with a positive relationship. The inflation rate is significant but affects negatively to performance.

This study only focuses on public sector banks. So, the results for private and foreign sector banks might differ. Considering the larger market share compared to other sector banks, the authors are focusing on public sector banks only. Foreign banks and cooperative banks are not included current analysis because of huge numbers and different working environments.

Determining influencing factors of bank performance is crucial because it will help the bank take various policy implications and formulation. Since independence measuring bank performance are important area.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the sources of caffeine and its utilization in different food products, along with its impact on human health in terms of benefits and adverse effect.

The papers reviewed were selected based on the following key descriptors such as caffeine, sources, trends of consumption, utilization, benefits and adverse effects, regulation and labelling.

There are many physiological effects of caffeine on respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, reproductive and central nervous system. It has a positive effect in reducing the risk of diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and liver injury and, at the same time, in improving mood, psychomotor performance and immune response. On the other hand, the negative effects of caffeine include addiction, cancer, heart diseases, insomnia, gastrointestinal disturbances and intoxication. As caffeine, when taken in large amount, is harmful, therefore as per the regulatory bodies, its concentration should not exceed the set limit, and its presence needs to be listed on the label of that particular food product. In a nutshell, it can be said that caffeine acts as a boon as well as bane because it possesses both beneficial and adverse effects.

This is a unique and comprehensive review that will provide a brief overview of sources, utilization, healthful as well as harmful effect of caffeine to the readers.

This study aims to observe the coloring efficacy of graphite (G) and nano bentonite clay (BCNPs) on the adsorption of Basic Blue 5 dye from residual dye bath solution.

Some factors that affected the adsorption processes were examined and found to have significant impacts on the adsorption capacity such as the initial concentration of G and/or BCNPs (Co: 40–2,320 mg/L), adsorbent bath pH (4–9), shaking time (30–150 min.) and initial dye concentration (40–200 mg/L). The adsorption mechanism of dye by using G and/or BCNPs was studied using two different models (first-pseudo order and second-pseudo order diffusion models). The equilibrium adsorption data for the dye understudy was analyzed by using four different models (Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin modle and Dubinin–Radushkevich) models.

It has been found that the adsorption kinetics follow rather a pseudo-first-order kinetic model with a determination coefficient (R²) of 0.99117 for G and 0.98665 for BCNPs. The results indicate that the Freundlich model provides the best correlation for G with capacities q_max = 2.33116535 mg/g and R² = 0.99588, while the Langmuir model provides the best correlation for BCNPs with R² = 0.99074. The adsorbent elaborated from BCNPs was found to be efficient and suitable for removing basic dyes rather than G from aqueous solutions due to its availability, good adsorption capability, as well as low-cost preparation.

There is no research limitation for this work. Basic Blue 5 dye graphite (G) and nano bentonite clay (BCNPs) were used.

This work has practical applications for the textile industry. It is concluded that using graphite and nano bentonite clay can be a possible alternative to adsorb residual dye from dye bath solution and can make the process greener.

Socially, it has a good impact on the ecosystem and global community because the residual dye does not contain any carcinogenic materials.

The work is original and contains value-added products for the textile industry and other confederate fields.

This paper aims to explore articulations of how individuals internalise official demands on handling COVID-19 and the function of social media in this process, and further to discuss this from a human rights’ perspective.

A thematic analysis of qualitative data from an international survey on COVID-19 and social media. The analysis was inspired by Berger and Luckmann's theory of reality as a social construction.

Articulations expressed an instant internalisation and externalisation of the officially defined “new normal”. However, negotiations of this “new normal” were articulated, whereby everyday life activities could proceed. Resistance to the “new normal” appeared, as routines and common sense understandings of everyday life were threatened. Health-care professionals were put in a paradoxical situation, living in accordance with the “new normal” outside work and legitimately deviating from it at work. The “new normal” calls for individuals’ “oughtonomy” rather than autonomy. Social media were used to push individual’s re-socialisation into the “new normal”. The latter both promoted and challenged human rights as the individual's right to self-determination extends beyond the self as it risks threatening other people's right to life.

With the means of a theoretically based thematic analysis inspired by Berger and Luckmann, the current study shows how articulations on COVID-19 and social media can both support and challenge human rights and reality as a facticity as dictated by dominant organisations and discourses in society.

The purpose of this paper is to study the functionality of additively manufactured (AM) parts, mainly depending on their dimensional accuracy and surface finish. However, the products manufactured using AM usually suffer from defects like roughness or uneven surfaces. This paper discusses the various surface quality improvement techniques, including how to reduce surface defects, surface roughness and dimensional accuracy of AM parts.

There are many different types of popular AM methods. Unfortunately, these AM methods are susceptible to different kinds of surface defects in the product. As a result, pre- and postprocessing efforts and control of various AM process parameters are needed to improve the surface quality and reduce surface roughness.

In this paper, the various surface quality improvement methods are categorized based on the type of materials, working principles of AM and types of finishing processes. They have been divided into chemical, thermal, mechanical and hybrid-based categories.

The review has evaluated the possibility of various surface finishing methods for enhancing the surface quality of AM parts. It has also discussed the research perspective of these methods for surface finishing of AM parts at micro- to nanolevel surface roughness and better dimensional accuracy.

This paper represents a comprehensive review of surface quality improvement methods for both metals and polymer-based AM parts.