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Considering the dearth of industry-specific empirical research exploring sustainability reporting in the context of developing countries, this chapter aims to critically examine the extent and the nature of sustainability information disclosure of environmentally polluting industries in India.

Data are collected from business responsibility reports (BRRs), sustainability reports, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports and integrated reports of all 57 energy and mining companies included in NIFTY500 Index at National Stock Exchange of India for the year 2017–2018 and 2018–2019. Content analysis is used to examine the sustainability disclosure practices and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical analysis is performed to test the difference across various dimensions of sustainability reporting of companies.

The results indicate low environmental reporting of the key indicators by energy and mining companies in India. It is found that state-owned companies have better social reporting practices against private sector companies. The findings also indicate that Global reporting initiative (GRI) based reporting have better sustainability disclosure practices and companies reporting based on BRR lack quantitative information disclosure.

The findings of the present chapter have several implications for policymakers, investors, regulators and management of these high environmental and social impact companies in India. The findings which coincide with the key areas of sustainability disclosure can be used for improving sustainability disclosure practices by the various stakeholders.

This is one of the first studies to investigate the nature and extent of sustainability performance disclosure of the companies from polluting industries in India. This chapter also contributes to the existing sustainability reporting literature by providing evidence on industry-specific disclosure in the context of a developing country.

This paper aims to examine the investigations made on the corrosion behaviour of magnesium (Mg) substrate electrodeposited using different nano-materials.

This study uses nano-materials such as those of reduced graphene oxide (r-GO), titanium-di-oxide (TiO₂) and also r-GO/TiO₂ nano-composites (dispersed through ultra-sonication process) at 3-min time interval. Crystalline nature of synthesized TiO₂ is studied through X-ray diffraction and its pore volume is measured to be approximately 0.1851ccg-1 by Brunauer Emmett Teller analysis.

Surface morphology of the developed set of specimens inspected through scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy establishes a clean surface coating and further witnesses for only minimal defects. Electrochemical behaviour of the developed coating is studied exhaustively using Tafel polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in 0.1 M Na₂SO₄ solution.

Incremental corrosion resistance exhibited by developed composite coating owes to the factors viz. chemical stability and hydrophobic tendency of TiO₂ and r-GO; these known engineering facts resist the flow of ions into the corrosive media and thereby reduce the rate of corrosion.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework for further understanding the risks embedded in co-creation services in high-contact service transactions. It delineates behavioral and economic perspectives focusing on agency costs, risk behavior, compensation structure and provides a context in which information is processed.

Following an extensive review of the literature, propositions are advanced that relate an agent’s risk behavior to information processing, compensation and the propensity to engage in co-creation. These propositions provide a complementary context for understanding risks in the co-creation process.

The propositions detail how a service agent’s information processing can be enhanced if the customer’s expected utility from transactions is maximized by managing the agent’s risk behavior and earnings potential. A compensation structure that balances fixed base and variable pay can motivate risk-taking and the agent’s propensity to engage in co-creation.

This paper extends the understanding of agency risks in the co-creation of hospitality services that integrates economic and behavioral perspectives with information processing. Theoretical implications include a broader context of the risks underlying co-creation. Practical implications relate to how earnings potential could be maximized by considering the agent’s risk behavior and the expected utility arising from such transactions.

The use of huge quantity of natural fine aggregate (NFA) and cement in civil construction work which have given rise to various ecological problems. The industrial waste like blast furnace slag (GGBFS), fly ash, metakaolin and silica fume can be partly used as a replacement for cement and manufactured sand obtained from crusher and partly used as fine aggregate. The purpose of this paper is to predict the shear strength of concrete using artificial neural network (ANN) for concrete made by using different pozzolans and partly replacing NFA by manufactured sand (MS) which can reduce the time and experimental cost.

In this work, MATLAB software model is developed using neural network toolbox to predict the shear strength of concrete made by using pozzolanic materials and partly replacing NFA by manufactured sand (MS). Shear strength was experimentally calculated, and results obtained from experiment were used to develop the ANN model. A total of 131 results values were used to modeling formation, and from that 30% data record was used for testing purpose and 70% data record was used for training purpose. In total, 25 input materials properties were used to find the 28 days shear strength of concrete obtained from partly replacing cement with pozzolans and partly replacing NFA by manufactured sand (MS).

The results obtained from ANN model provide very strong accuracy to predict shear strength of concrete obtained from partly replacing cement with pozzolans and NFA by manufactured sand.

This research study is on determining shear strength of concrete using ANN. The use of this study is to predict the shear strength of concrete using ANN for concrete made by using different pozzolans and partly replacing NFA by manufactured sand (MS) which can reduce the time and experimental cost.

The aim of the work is to investigate structural behaviour of reinforced concrete (RF) beam retrofitted with basalt fibre (BF) fabric. The incorporation of BF showed enhancement in bending strength, to increase confinement and to repair damages caused by cracking. In the early decades, using BF for composite materials shaped BF as an excellent physical substance with necessary mechanical properties, highlighting the significant procedures ability.

Specimens were casted with U-wrapped BF and then evaluated based on flexural tests. In the test carried over for flexural fortifying assessment, BF reinforcements demonstrated a definitive quality improvement in the case of the subjected control sample; ultimately, the end impacts depend upon the applied test parameters. From the outcomes introduced in this comparison, for the double-wrapped sample, the modifications improved by 12% than that of the single-wrapped beam, which is identified to subsist for a better strengthening of new-age retrofitting designs.

The current research deals with the retrofitting of RC beam by conducting a comparative experiment on wrapping of BF (single or double BF wrapping) in improving the mechanical behavior of concrete.

It can be shown from the experimental results that increasing the number of layers has significant effect on basalt strengthened beams.

The current research prioritizes the dimensions of a higher-order customer engagement construct in the tourism destination context in order of their relative importance as perceived by tourists to provide meaningful insights to the tourism industry player.

Data was collected from 429 tourists' from selected tourist destinations. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used for data analysis using SPSS. The scale items were prioritized through hybrid evidence-based modeling using the RIDIT-GRA (Relative to an Identified Distribution and Grey Relational Analysis, respectively) approach.

The prioritization of customer engagement scale items is done through RIDIT analysis and is verified through GRA. The rankings of two independent methodologies show a 93% correlation, thereby ensuring the ranking's robustness.

Prioritizing customer engagement scale items may assist destination managers in strategy formulation to ensure tourists' high-level loyalty transcending purchase. The findings help develop key response areas (KRA's) for effective destination brand management.

Such precedence analysis of customer engagement scale items has not been done in the tourism studies yet. Also, the present study verified the results by incorporating two independent methodologies, thus providing more valid results.

This study aims to investigate sustainability practices in the banking industry, focusing on a developing economy. It uses the triple-bottom-line framework to answer the following research question: how do banks in Nigeria conceptualise sustainability, and what role does it play in their banking practices?

This study adopts a social constructivist approach in its exploration of banking sustainability practices in an emerging economy, and the research design is a purpose-based (exploratory) approach. The qualitative data was collected from 33 bank personnel from various bank units and departments through semi-structured interviews to achieve the research objective.

The study reveals a lack of sustainability policies and programmes, as banks focus mainly on profitability. It uncovers unfair treatments of bank workers through casualisation, low wages and work overload. It indicates that most banks in developing countries ignore environmental considerations, as they still carry out paper-based transactions and use diesel-powered generators, which cause various negative environmental impacts. It also confirms that governments and banks in the country are not doing enough to propagate sustainable practices and banks have also not taken advantage of the sustainability concept to promote their brands; instead, they consider it as requiring additional operational costs.

The findings demonstrate the need for banks to see sustainability from a marketing point of view and adopt sustainable practices to create additional value that will improve their brand image and enhance their competitiveness.

The importance of sustainability in the banking industry in emerging economies is considered a viable means of contributing to the overall development goals of the United Nations as the world tries to preserve the environment. It also highlights the consequences of inaction or unsustainable banking practices.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of surface roughness on the squeeze film characteristics of long porous partial journal bearings with couple stress fluids as lubricant.

The Stokes couple stress fluid model is included to account for the additives effects of lubricant. The Christensen's stochastic method developed for the hydrodynamic lubrication of rough surfaces is used to derive the stochastic Reynolds type equation accounting for the surface roughness and couple stresses. In the context of Christensen's stochastic theory for the hydrodynamic lubrication of rough surfaces, two types of one‐dimensional surface roughness (longitudinal and transverse) patterns are considered. The non‐linear first order differential equation governing the journal center movement is solved numerically by using the fourth order R‐K method.

From the numerical computations of the results, it is found that, the effect of couple stresses is to increase the load carrying capacity and also the response time. The effect of surface roughness is to increase (decrease) the load carrying capacity and the response time for transverse (longitudinal) roughness pattern. However, the effect of permeability parameter is to decrease the load carrying capacity and also to decrease the response time as compared to the solid case.

The original findings on the combined effects of surface roughness and couple stresses on the squeeze film characteristics of long porous partial journal bearing are of use to the bearing designers.

Using the two waves of the India Time Use Survey, 1998–1999 and 2019, we document a 110-minute (30%) increase in average daily learning time. The largest offsetting decrease was in work time: 61 minutes. The composition of leisure changed, with television rising by 19 minutes, while talking fell by 10 minutes and games by 17 minutes. We then implement a Gelbach decomposition, showing that 68 minutes of the unconditional learning increase are predicted by demographic covariates. Of these predictors the most important are a child's state of residence and usual principal activity, which captures extensive-margin transitions into schooling.