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Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s the debate surrounding the comparative costs and benefits of town centre and out‐of‐town retail developments for consumers and to the environment has been a heated one. Informed by a largely puritanical view of consumerism, current Government policy tends towards the preservation of the traditional town centre. However, the actual evidence is far from conclusive and there is limited consumer research supporting this stance. Based on an interviewer‐administered survey conducted during 1994 and 1995 to assess shoppers’ opinions in both types of location in Preston, presents an examination of consumer perspectives and examines differences in perceptions and behaviour patterns among town centre and out‐of‐town shoppers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of religiosity on ethical consumption of consumers. It also aims to measure the mediating effect of materialism and guilt.

The study collected data from 360 Indian consumers through an online survey.

Religiosity was found to have a strong and significant influence on consumers’ ethical consumption behaviour. It was also found that materialism and guilt mediate the relationship between religiosity and ethical consumption. Findings reveal that a higher level of religiosity in consumers guides them to avoid unwanted behaviour such as unethical consumption.

The study provides an insight into the significance of values in ethical consumption decisions. It examines the mediational effect of materialism and guilt between religiosity and ethical consumption.

Marketers can formulate more successful communication strategies by taking into account the level of religiosity of Indian consumers and underlying cultural foundations within the society. Marketers can also use taglines or promotional messages to promote sacrifice for the well-being of the environment.

This research is a guiding step towards studying the influence of religiosity on ethical consumption through guilt and materialism of consumers in an emerging nation.

This paper aims to examine the existing practice of accepting zakat payments using cryptocurrencies and crypto assets by discussing its Shariah issues.

This is qualitative research in nature, as unstructured interviews with experts in the field were conducted to understand the existing practice regarding zakat on cryptocurrencies/crypto assets while literature on the topic was reviewed to derive conclusions.

It is found that there are divergent views among contemporary Shariah scholars on the Shariah permissibility of cryptocurrency and crypto assets. As such, by evaluating the existing practices of some companies, this study has concluded that there is room to pay zakat using cryptocurrencies and from investments made on crypto assets. As long as they have been screened and classified as Shariah-compliant, they can be qualified to be part of one’s wealth from which zakat shall be paid. However, the findings of this research shall be subject to the fatwa and rules adopted in the specific jurisdiction in which the zakat payer resides. Laws made by the ruler to benefit the public ought to be considered in upholding the masalih (public interests) of all, which is in line with the legal maxim of “tasarruf al imam manut bi al-maslahah” (the ruler’s decision is dictated in favor of the people).

It is anticipated that the findings of this research will benefit zakat organizations and zakat payers in understanding how they should deal with cryptocurrencies and crypto assets in the collection and payment of zakat.

This study explores challenges facing the applicability of deep learning (DL) in software-defined networks (SDN) based campus networks. The study intensively explains the automation problem that exists in traditional campus networks and how SDN and DL can provide mitigating solutions. It further highlights some challenges which need to be addressed in order to successfully implement SDN and DL in campus networks to make them better than traditional networks.

The study uses a systematic literature review. Studies on DL relevant to campus networks have been presented for different use cases. Their limitations are given out for further research.

Following the analysis of the selected studies, it showed that the availability of specific training datasets for campus networks, SDN and DL interfacing and integration in production networks are key issues that must be addressed to successfully deploy DL in SDN-enabled campus networks.

This study reports on challenges associated with implementation of SDN and DL models in campus networks. It contributes towards further thinking and architecting of proposed SDN-based DL solutions for campus networks. It highlights that single problem-based solutions are harder to implement and unlikely to be adopted in production networks.

The purpose of this research is to assess the service quality of central blood bank from blood donors’ perspective.

Data were collected by empirical study in a central blood bank. The instrument captured 354 blood donors’ using a SERVQUAL questionnaire. The study looked at perception and expectation levels of blood donors. After that, the gap five scores were determined.

The paper finds that, for the blood donors, gap (five) scores are all positive implying that the blood donors’ tend to be satisfied.

Based on the results, central blood bank management may consider measures in order to diagnose, analyze, and identify opportunities of improvements of service quality.

This study attempts to explore the relatively less explored area of measuring service quality of a central blood bank from blood donors’ perspectives through implementation of the SERVQUAL model.

The purpose of this paper is to both determine the effects of the nonlinearity on the wave dynamics and assess the temporal and spatial accuracy of five finite difference methods for the solution of the inviscid generalized regularized long-wave (GRLW) equation subject to initial Gaussian conditions.

Two implicit second- and fourth-order accurate finite difference methods and three Runge-Kutta procedures are introduced. The methods employ a new dependent variable which contains the wave amplitude and its second-order spatial derivative. Numerical experiments are reported for several temporal and spatial step sizes in order to assess their accuracy and the preservation of the first two invariants of the inviscid GRLW equation as functions of the spatial and temporal orders of accuracy, and thus determine the conditions under which grid-independent results are obtained.

It has been found that the steepening of the wave increase as the nonlinearity exponent is increased and that the accuracy of the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method is comparable to that of a second-order implicit procedure for time steps smaller than 100th, and that only the fourth-order compact method is almost grid-independent if the time step is on the order of 1,000th and more than 5,000 grid points are used, because of the initial steepening of the initial profile, wave breakup and solitary wave propagation.

This is the first study where an accuracy assessment of wave breakup of the inviscid GRLW equation subject to initial Gaussian conditions is reported.

The purpose of this paper is to solve an unsteady nonlinear convective‐radiative equation and a nonlinear convective‐radiative‐conduction equation containing two small parameters of ε₁ and ε₂ by variational homotopy perturbation method.

The heat transfer equations are described. The variational homotopy perturbation method as a powerful method for solving linear and nonlinear equations is applied to find the solutions of our model equations.

The solutions of heat transfer equations are calculated in the form of convergent series with easily computable components. Two examples are solved as illustrations, using symbolic computation.

The results show that the suggested method is easy to implement and has high level of accuracy. The method introduces a reliable tool for solving many linear and nonlinear differential equations.

This paper aims to explore the use of tangible user interfaces for teaching concepts related to internet of things by focusing on two aspects, notably, usability and learning effectiveness.

To assess the usability of IoTTT, Nielsen’s principles were used due to its relevance and popularity for usability assessment. In the usability questionnaire, four attributes were evaluated, notably, learnability, efficiency, errors and satisfaction. As for evaluating learning effectiveness, learning assessment was conducted through pre-tests and post-tests. Two groups of 20 students participated where the first group attended conventional lectures on IoT, whereas the second group used IoTTT for learning same concepts. In the process, data was collected through the usability questionnaire and tests for usability and learning effectiveness assessment.

Results revealed a positive score for the usability of the TUI solution with an average rating of 3.9. Although this score demonstrated an acceptable solution, different issues were identified, based on which a set of recommendations have been made in this paper. On the other hand, in the common pre-tests, an average score of 6.40 was obtained as compared to a mean score of 7.33 in the post-tests for all participants. Knowledge gains were significantly higher for students who learnt IoT concepts through the TUI-based system where performance improved by 18 per cent.

The results revealed in this study are expected to help the research community, course designers and tutors comprehend the prospects of using tangible user interfaces to foster teaching and learning of IoT concepts. In addition, educational solution providers could consider commercialisation prospects of this technology to innovate in teaching and learning, while also building-up on limitations identified within this study.