Search results

Experiments are the backbone of the development process of data-driven predictive models for scientific applications. The quality of the experiments directly impacts the model performance. Uncertainty inherently affects experiment measurements and is often missing in the available data sets due to its estimation cost. For similar reasons, experiments are very few compared to other data sources. Discarding experiments based on the missing uncertainty values would preclude the development of predictive models. Data profiling techniques are fundamental to assess data quality, but some data quality dimensions are challenging to evaluate without knowing the uncertainty. In this context, this paper aims to predict the missing uncertainty of the experiments.

This work presents a methodology to forecast the experiments’ missing uncertainty, given a data set and its ontological description. The approach is based on knowledge graph embeddings and leverages the task of link prediction over a knowledge graph representation of the experiments database. The validity of the methodology is first tested in multiple conditions using synthetic data and then applied to a large data set of experiments in the chemical kinetic domain as a case study.

The analysis results of different test case scenarios suggest that knowledge graph embedding can be used to predict the missing uncertainty of the experiments when there is a hidden relationship between the experiment metadata and the uncertainty values. The link prediction task is also resilient to random noise in the relationship. The knowledge graph embedding outperforms the baseline results if the uncertainty depends upon multiple metadata.

The employment of knowledge graph embedding to predict the missing experimental uncertainty is a novel alternative to the current and more costly techniques in the literature. Such contribution permits a better data quality profiling of scientific repositories and improves the development process of data-driven models based on scientific experiments.

Although previous studies have examined the influence of celebrity involvement in behavioural intentions, the role of celebrity dimensions such as attraction, self-expression and centrality in influencing tourists’ intention in the context of developing countries such as Tanzania remains largely unaddressed. This study, therefore, examined the relationship between celebrity involvement and domestic tourists' intentions to visit tourist attractions, attitude being the mediating variable.

A questionnaire was self-administered on a convenient sample of 279 domestic tourists in the Tanzania’s four largest regions, namely, Dar es Salaam, Mbeya, Arusha and Mwanza. Employing a quantitative research approach, structural equation modelling was performed to test the cause-and-effect relationships between celebrity involvement and tourists’ intentions before testing the mediating role of attitude in such a relationship. Confirmatory factor analysis was also performed to test the measurement models.

Attraction emerged to be the main determinant of the celebrity dimension that significantly influenced domestic tourists’ travel intentions, whereas attitude partially mediates such a relationship. Moreover, Bongo Fleva musicians, particularly Diamond Platnumz, one of the leading celebrities in this genre, were found to influence most of the respondents’ travel intentions – he posted a picture on his Instagram account of him touring the Serengeti National Park.

The study focused on domestic tourists residing in four of the Mainland Tanzania’s largest regions, hence excluding those residing on the islands of Unguja and Pemba. Due to cultural differences, including the islands not only could unleash new perspectives on celebrity involvement dimensions but also could have introduced new determinants of travel intentions.

This study offers guidance to tourism businesses on designing their marketing campaigns that they should harness celebrity’s attractive qualities effectively. The focus should be directed not only towards linking destinations with celebrities but also on stimulating positive perception of those destinations, aligning with the attitudes of their followers.

The study has set out a new perspective for researchers, practitioners and tourism businesses to refine their promotional strategies and for academicians to gain a deeper understanding of visitor behavioural intention dynamics.

This study has proposed and verified that attraction is a dominant determinant compared to self-expression and centrality in explaining tourists’ travel intentions and attitudes, which play a significant role in explaining such a relationship. Although the study employed a modified theory of planned behaviour in a celebrity involvement study, the findings have broadened the understanding and its applicability in the context of a developing country.

The main purpose of this research is to investigate factors influencing rural women entrepreneurship development and sustainable rural livelihoods in Manicaland province of Zimbabwe.

A quantitative research was conducted in Manicaland province in Zimbabwe. Data were collected through structured questionnaires from 400 women entrepreneurs in various sectors. The participants were in vegetable vending, operating clothing flea markets and cross border trading. A self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents. Structural equation modeling in SmartPLS version 3 was used to test the research hypotheses.

The study established that women entrepreneurship is driven by financial factors, positive environmental factors, positive psychological factors as well as positive sociological factors for a sustainable rural livelihood.

It is clear that if the discovered challenges are not addressed, sustainability of women entrepreneurship will remain a dream.

The study came up with strategies for improving women entrepreneurship activities. Future research can be done in other areas of provinces to avoid generalization challenges.

Many challenges hinder the sustainability of women entrepreneurship. Major impediments to women entrepreneurship comprises inadequate support from government schemes, patriarchal societal structure of the community, lack of relevant entrepreneurial knowledge to manage businesses, lack of collateral security to access funding, time limitation or role conflict to balance family pressures and business.

The study recommends proper entrepreneurship education and training, supportive government schemes and access to network affiliation/connection to sustain women entrepreneurship.

Due to the uniqueness of individual construction projects, identifying the dominant risk factors is needed for risk mitigation in ongoing and future projects. This study aims to identify the dominant construction supply chain risk (CSCR) factors, based on studies conducted between 2002 and 2022.

The study adopts the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) procedure to identify, screen and select relevant articles in order to provide a bibliography and annotation of the prevalent risks in the supply chains. A descriptive analysis of the findings then follows.

The study’s findings have highlighted the three most prevalent risks in the construction supply chain (poor communication across project teams, changes in foreign currency rate, unfavorable climate conditions) as reported in literature, that project teams need to pay closer attention to and take proactive steps to mitigate.

Due to limitations imposed by the chosen research methodology, tools, time frame and article availability, the study was unable to examine all CSCR-related papers.

The results will serve as a useful roadmap for risk/supply chain managers in the construction industry to take strategically proactive steps towards allocating resources for CSCR mitigation efforts.

Context-specific research on the impact of social and cultural risks on the construction supply chain would be beneficial, due to emerging social network risk factors and the complex socio-cultural settings.

There is presently no study that has reviewed extant studies to identify and compile the dominant risk factors (DRFs) associated with the supply chain of construction projects for ranking in the supply chain risk management process.

The decarbonization of power generation is key to achieving carbon neutrality in China by the end of 2060. This paper aims to examine how green finance influences China’s low-carbon transition of power generation. Using a provincial panel data set as an empirical study example, green finance is assessed first, then empirically analyses the influences of green finance on the low-carbon transition of power generation, as well as intermediary mechanisms at play. Finally, this paper makes relevant recommendations for peak carbon and carbon neutrality in China.

To begin with, an evaluation index system with five indicators is constructed with entropy weighting method. Second, this paper uses the share of coal-fired power generation that takes in total power generation as an inverse indicator to measure the low-carbon transition in power generation. Finally, the authors perform generalized method of moments (GMM) econometric model to examine how green finance influences China’s low-carbon transition of power generation by taking advantage of 30 provincial panel data sets, spanning the period of 2007–2019. Meanwhile, the implementation of the 2016 Guidance on Green Finance is used as a turning point to address endogeneity using difference-in-difference method (DID).

The prosperity of green finance can markedly reduce the share of thermal power generation in total electricity generation, which implies a trend toward China’s low-carbon transformation in the power generation industry. Urbanization and R&D investment are driving forces influencing low-carbon transition, while economic development hinders the low-carbon transition. The conclusions remain robust after a series of tests such as the DID method, instrumental variable method and replacement indicators. Notably, the results of the mechanism analysis suggest that green finance contributes to low-carbon transformation in power generation by reducing secondary sectoral share, reducing the production of export products, promoting the advancement of green technologies and expanding the proportion of new installed capacity of renewable energy.

This paper puts forward relevant suggestions for promoting the green finance development with countermeasures such as allowing low interest rate for renewable energy power generation, facilitating market function and using carbon trade market. Additional policy implication is to promote high quality urbanization and increase R&D investment while pursuing high quality economic development. The last implication is to develop mechanism to strengthen the transformation of industrial structure, to promote high quality trade from high carbon manufactured products to low-carbon products, to stimulate more investment in green technology innovation and to accelerate the greening of installed structure in power generation industry.

This paper first attempts to examine the low-carbon transition in power generation from a new perspective of green finance. Second, this paper analyses the mechanism through several aspects: the share of secondary industry, the output of exported products, advances in green technology and the share of renewable energy in new installed capacity, which has not yet been done. Finally, this study constructs a system of indicators to evaluate green finance, including five indicators with entropy weighting method. In conclusion, this paper provides scientific references for sustainable development in China, and meanwhile for other developing countries with similar characteristics.

This study examines experiences and enjoyment of national parks in the context of Tanzania.

A cross-sectional design with quantitative and qualitative methods is applied. The study area is Nyerere National Park in Tanzania. Data collected from fully completed structured questionnaires by 360 domestic tourists are subjected to descriptive statistics and Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling analysis. Content analysis is used to analyze qualitative data.

The findings have revealed that there is a significant relationship between direct experiences and enjoyment of southern national parks among domestic tourists.

The suggestion is for future studies to explore a longitudinal approach to determine the patterns of domestic tourists in reference to experiences and enjoyment of national parks so as to improve domestic tourism.

The practical implication is for the government, private sector and tourism stakeholders to improve infrastructure and conduct regular surveys and tour guide training.

This study examines experiences and enjoyment of national parks in the context of Tanzania and, specifically analyzes the relationship between direct experiences and enjoyment of southern national parks among domestic tourists in Tanzania guided by types of tourists’ theory.

The paper examines the role of stakeholders in tourism and hospitality industry to ensure sustainability. This study focuses on investigating how stakeholders view can influence business sustainability in the tourism industry in Ghana and Africa. The study also looks at the future of sustainable tourism activities in Ghana and Africa.

A qualitative approach was adopted and interviewees were purposively selected. Using the semi-structured interview 12 people were interviewed and NVivo used to analyse the data. The study was carried out in Accra the capital city of Ghana. Using the stakeholder based theory and resource based theory (RBT) the study addresses how sustainable competitive advantage can be developed.

Results shows how stakeholders involved such employees, government, community/society, private sector and individual shop owners perceive factors that enhance or limit progress in tourism. Some challenges they encounter include high level of illiteracy, lack of education for upcoming youth, low funding and publicity, lack of the enforcement of laws in the sector. The findings also indicated that to ensure sustainability in the industry the products should be unique, valuable, rare, non-substitutable and non-imitable and has to be advertised.

Researchers encountered difficulties in eliciting answers from stakeholders who are experts and managers in the industry because of their busy schedules. The researcher admits that this research work which is carried out only in Ghana cannot be used to generalise an assumption for the entire industry sectors in Africa and beyond. The sample size could be improved and the study could be conducted in other African countries for the purposes of comparison.

This study reveals how stakeholders view developments in the tourism sector and this can be used as a guide in developing policies and marketing strategies in the tourism industry. Both theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Very little literature has been written on stakeholders' view on business sustainability in the tourism industry in Ghana. Moreover the use of stakeholder and resource based view theories application in developing competitive advantage in the developing country perspective is unique. The findings in no small way will somehow benefit the government and industry stakeholders by providing the latest views and perspectives in Ghana.

This study presents and validates a theoretical model linking individual characteristics of the founding or lead innovative entrepreneur of a start-up venture – the entrepreneur's values, entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial self-efficacy – to the firm's entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO) and, ultimately, to firm performance.

We conducted a survey on a stratified random sample of founders of early-stage South Australian micro- and small enterprises with a response rate of 24% (N = 204). Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the model.

The study found that there is a significant relationship between the individual lead entrepreneur and firm strategies developed in early-stage firms in explaining firm performance. It also found that internal values are positively related to entrepreneurial attitude. Entrepreneurial attitude is positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy and EO innovativeness. In turn, entrepreneurial self-efficacy is related to innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking. The proactiveness dimension of EO and entrepreneurial attitude is related to MO. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy, innovativeness and MO are related to firm performance.

This research was limited to entrepreneurial ventures in South Australia and may lack generalisability in other states and countries.

The research contributes to the understanding of the heterogeneity within self-employed individuals, in particular among innovative entrepreneurs, by expanding insights regarding antecedents and consequences of the entrepreneurial process. It develops insights into the links of individual-level constructs with firm-level constructs to develop a more meaningful understanding of new venture creation and performance. It enhances our knowledge of the heterogeneity within the group of self-employed by exploring the individual entrepreneurial antecedents of performance in early-stage firms.

An individual engages in a façade of conformity by attempting to appear to embrace their organization's values when, in truth, they do not. While numerous studies investigate the negative outcomes associated with facades of conformity, fewer studies consider its antecedents. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the association between diversity-related influences – including individuals' beliefs, other unit members' beliefs, unit gender diversity and unit racial diversity – and individuals' propensities to engage in a façade of conformity.

This paper administered an online survey to 2,122 employees nested within 151 units located at a hospital site located in the southeastern United States. Hierarchical linear modeling and relative weights analyses were used to test the study hypotheses which aimed to determine how objective diversity and perceptions associated with diversity increase or diminish facades of conformity.

In this paper individuals' and other unit members' beliefs that their organization values diversity were negatively associated with facades of conformity; however, there was a positive association between unit gender diversity and facades of conformity. There were no statistically significant associations involving unit racial diversity or interactive effects. Overall, the results indicate that it is less likely that employees will engage in façades of conformity when diversity is valued within organizations.

By further expanding understanding of the concept of façades of conformity within the humanities and social sciences literature, this study highlight the importance of allowing and encouraging employees to “be themselves.”

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between technology orientations and export performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A quantitative research design was adopted for this study. The paper formulates hypotheses from the literature review. These hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling with data collected from 231 SMEs in Uganda. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 23 and AMOS.

The findings of this study showed technology orientation has a positive and significant relationship with the performance of Ugandan SMEs and that supply chain agility moderates technology orientation and export performance.

The study discusses the findings, advances limitations and managerial implications. It also suggests future research avenues. It proposes some recommendations to help Ugandan SMEs to form flexible supply chains, use the latest technology and create strong relationship ties with their partners in the supply chain.

The study suggests that managers of Ugandan SMEs should use the latest technology in production, marketing, logistics and supply chain management which will enable them to respond quickly to customer tastes and preferences leading to higher levels of export performance.

This study contributes to the literature on strategic management showing the reliability of scales used and the confirmatory of the factor structure. This study shows that in strategic management technology, orientation is critical in increasing export performance. This study has extended the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities theories.