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The purpose of this paper is to describe how a consortium of universities in the Asia Pacific region are endeavouring to make a contribution to the implementation of education for sustainable development (ESD) through their participation with and the operation of the Promotion of Sustainability in Postgraduate Education and Research Net project.

The paper describes the evolutionary development of one of the projects of this network (specifically related to ESD in business schools) as the members seek to institute changes at their respective institutions at the same time as contributing to project collaboration in order to enhance the contribution to regional ESD.

The paper discusses the challenges confronting higher education institutions in the context of the decade of education for sustainable development (DESD) and finds that whilst many local actions within universities are being initiated in relation to ESD, there is insufficient cross institutional collaboration occurring to achieve the transformative agenda of ESD. In particular, universities are leaving it to individuals and departments to develop new curriculum for ESD. To overcome this, work is required at a discipline level across the higher education sector (both nationally and internationally) to support curriculum development for ESD.

Issues confronting this project and its consortium members are issues confronting many institutions of higher education (IHE) across the globe as they seek to give effect to the ramifications of ESD. The identification of issues by the project and the steps taken to overcome obstacles will be relevant to many IHE.

The challenges of ESD require not only local changes and improvements (within an organisation) but compel the connection between local and global and consequently between individual organisations and the “system” in which they operate. This applies particularly to individual universities and to the education “system” in relation to ESD, especially as there are considerable expectations of the education system to reorient and reshape our future leaders to understand and incorporate sustainability into their future careers and ways of life. Conventional and traditional approaches to curriculum development at individual universities is impeding the implementation of ESD. This project is endeavouring to develop a model for shared curriculum development which will speed up the implementation of ESD and ensure that individual universities and individual departments can focus on the transformative aspects of ESD in the curriculum.

The purpose of the study is to classify the radiographic images into three categories such as fillings, cavity and implant to identify dental diseases because dental disease is a very common dental health problem for all people. The detection of dental issues and the selection of the most suitable method of treatment are both determined by the results of a radiological examination. Dental x-rays provide important information about the insides of teeth and their surrounding cells, which helps dentists detect dental issues that are not immediately visible. The analysis of dental x-rays, which is typically done by dentists, is a time-consuming process that can become an error-prone technique due to the wide variations in the structure of teeth and the dentist's lack of expertise. The workload of a dental professional and the chance of misinterpretation can be decreased by the availability of such a system, which can interpret the result of an x-ray automatically.

This study uses deep learning (DL) models to identify dental diseases in order to tackle this issue. Four different DL models, such as ResNet-101, Xception, DenseNet-201 and EfficientNet-B0, were evaluated in order to determine which one would be the most useful for the detection of dental diseases (such as fillings, cavity and implant).

Loss and accuracy curves have been used to analyze the model. However, the EfficientNet-B0 model performed better compared to Xception, DenseNet-201 and ResNet-101. The accuracy, recall, F1-score and AUC values for this model were 98.91, 98.91, 98.74 and 99.98%, respectively. The accuracy rates for the Xception, ResNet-101 and DenseNet-201 are 96.74, 93.48 and 95.65%, respectively.

The present study can benefit dentists from using the DL model to more accurately diagnose dental problems.

This study is conducted to evaluate dental diseases using Convolutional neural network (CNN) techniques to assist dentists in selecting the most effective technique for a particular clinical condition.

This study aims to examine the connectedness among green, Islamic and conventional financial markets from December 2008 to May 2021. Moreover, the impact of global factors on the connectedness of given financial markets is also observed.

This study first employed the time-varying parameter vector autoregressions (TVP-VAR) technique to explore the connectedness of markets. Second, This study utilized the wavelet coherence analysis to test the time-frequency impact of global factors in terms of implied volatilities of stock, oil, gold, currency and bond on the connectedness across financial markets.

This study finds Islamic stocks, sustainability index and S&P500 composite index are the net transmitters, whereas Sukuk, commodity index, bond market, clean energy and green bonds are the net recipient of spillovers. Time-varying features of green, Islamic and conventional financial markets are evident in system-wide connectedness. This study further evidenced that global factors drive the connectedness of financial markets, particularly during stressful times.

The findings of this study furnish significant implications for policymakers, regulatory authorities, investors, financial market participants and portfolio managers in terms of carefully assessing the unique characteristics offered by each financial market in terms of risk mitigation and diversifying the portfolios.

Using a portfolio of green, Islamic and conventional financial markets, the uniqueness of this study lies in the examination of the connectedness of these markets by deploying the TVP-VAR technique. In addition, wavelet analysis offers a significant contribution in terms of global factors driving the connectedness of green, Islamic and conventional markets.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of Total Quality Management (TQM) practices on the performance of employees working in higher education institutions (HEIs). It also examines the mechanism through which TQM practices affect the performance of employees.

Data for the current study were obtained from both public and private sector HEIs of Pakistan. In total, 400 questionnaires were distributed among the administrative and academic staff of 3 universities and 240 usable questionnaires were received. Data were analyzed through regression analysis using SPSS.

The results show that the TQM positively and significantly determines employee performance, and the mediating variables of job satisfaction and affective commitment. Both the mediating variables show a mediating role in the TQM/employee performance relationship.

The study has practical implications for universities’ top management to focus on TQM practices that help in building and enhancing satisfaction, commitment, as well as performance of the employees that could ultimately result in better performance of the universities.

This research is an addition to the current literature and the first attempt in this area to the best of authors’ knowledge. This study will help in identifying how important and beneficial it would be for the services organizations to implement the TQM practices and identifying the impact of TQM practices on employee’s job performance.

This study quantified the hedge and safe haven features of bond markets for multiple cryptocurrency indices from June 2014 to April 2021 to highlight whether bond markets offer hedging facilities to uncertainty indices of cryptocurrencies.

The authors employed the methodology of Baur and McDermott (2010) and AGDCC-GARCH model to measure the hedge and safe-haven characteristics of three bond markets (BBGT, SPGB and SKUK) for three uncertainty indexes of cryptocurrencies (UCRPR, UCRPO and ICEA).

The authors find that bond markets are neither hedge nor safe havens except for SKUK which is a safe haven investment for cryptocurrency indices and offers substantial diversification during the periods of economic fragility. In addition, the hedge effectiveness of SPGB outperforms other bonds during crisis periods and provides sufficient diversification potential for cryptocurrency indices.

The findings are important for policymakers, regulatory bodies, financial firms and investors in assessing hedge and safe haven characteristics of bond markets against cryptocurrency indices.

Employing the novel methodology of AGDCC-GARCH with three different bond markets and three uncertainty indices of cryptocurrencies, the current study adds to the existing strand of literature in terms of quantifying hedge and safe-haven attributes of bond markets for cryptocurrency uncertainty indexes.

This study aims to examine the hedge and safe-haven properties of the Sukuk and green bond for the stock markets pre- and during the COVID-19 pandemic period.

To test the hedge and safe-haven characteristics of Sukuk and green bonds for stock markets, the study first uses the methodology proposed by Ratner and Chiu (2013). Next, the authors estimate the hedge ratios and hedge effectiveness of using Sukuk and green bonds in a portfolio with stock markets.

Strong safe-haven features of ethical (green) bonds reveal that adding green bonds into the investment portfolios brings considerable diversification avenues for the investors who tend to take fewer risks in periods of economic stress and turbulence. The hedge ratio and hedge effectiveness estimates reveal that green bonds provide sufficient evidence of the hedge effectiveness for various international stocks.

The study has significant implications for faith-based investors, ethical investors, policymakers and regulatory bodies. Religious investors can invest in Sukuk to relish low-risk and interest-free investments, whereas green investors can satisfy their socially responsible motives by investing in these investment streams. Policymakers can direct the businesses to include these diversifiers for portfolio and risk management.

The study provides novel insights in the testing hedge and safe-haven attributes of green bonds and Sukuk while using unique methodologies to identify multiple low-risk investors for investors following the uncertain COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the barriers inhibiting the adoption of green building and measures to promote this approach in Pakistan.

Barriers and measures were identified and examined by using a combination of research methods, including literature review, questionnaire survey, and in-depth interviews with the construction industry-related practitioners working in Pakistan. Ranking technique and factor analysis were used to identify the significant issues associated with the adoption of green building practices.

As per the survey results, the most critical barrier is “lack of awareness among people about the importance and advantages of adopting green building practices,” followed by “lack of incentives from government” and “lack of green building codes and regulations,” respectively. The results also indicate that most important measure to promote the adoption of green buildings is “creation of public awareness toward green initiatives through seminars, workshops, and discussions,” followed by “availability of green building codes and regulations (mandatory to apply)” and “financial incentives and penalties by the government (e.g. soft loan, tax) for promoting green building practices,” respectively.

Research limitation is that its findings, other than Pakistan, cannot be generalized to other developing countries.

Findings of the research will be helpful in sensitizing the regulatory agencies, the policy makers, and the building construction practitioners about the barriers to adoption of green building practices. The suggested measures will help in devising policies and economic measures to promote the construction of green and environment-friendly buildings.

This research will help the common people to know about the importance of green buildings that may lead to a deviation from the practice of traditional buildings to a widespread trend of building green buildings. This will lead to drastic reduction in demand for energy and considerable monetary savings for the common people.

The findings of this study are expected to contribute valuable information to decision makers for the better understanding of key issues that call for more attention in the promotion of efforts of green building practices in Pakistan. The results are based on the perception of local stakeholders, but might also be helpful for policy makers in other countries.

The purpose of this paper is to boost the existing literature on adaptive market hypothesis (AMH) as it first time links predictability of gold, silver and metal returns with AMH which permits the predictability of returns to vary over time.

To know whether commodity (gold, silver and metal) market is efficient or not, the commodity returns are observed by using appropriate linear time series tests (variance ratio test, runs test and auto-correlation test). To capture the varying efficiency of three commodities, the study employs subsamples of five years and all sub-samples are exposed to linear econometric tests to reveal how market efficiency (independency of returns) has behaved over time.

It is found that the commodity market (gold, silver and metal) is adaptive because fluctuation is observed in the market efficiency. Returns of all three commodities go under the periods of efficiency and inefficiency. Thus, AMH is the better description of behavior of commodity markets than traditional efficient market hypothesis.

Choice of sub-sample in the study is the first limitation as the authors employ a sub-sample comprising five years. Second, commission, fee and taxes (transection cost) are ignored in the study. Finally, the results are reported on the basis of linear econometric tests. In future, longer time period sub-sample analysis is suggested by the study to explore the varying nature of the commodities. Moreover, rolling window analysis may be a more appropriate method to elucidate the idea of AMH in further research. It is further suggested that the method used in the study could be helpful and adapted to examine other commodities (metal and agriculture), bonds and equity markets around the world.

The study will provide a better investment model which can enable the investors to seek more returns in future. Moreover, this research can be extended to explore multiple issues like adaptive behavior of returns from crypto currencies, bonds, stocks and real estate investment trusts.

As all the linear tests reveal that almost all the commodities show inefficient behavior in full sample period, it is clear that past prices widely would be helpful to predict the future prices at NYSE; furthermore, investors can use the time-varying information to reduce the risk of investment at NYSE. The study is helpful for individual investors as well as portfolio managers and brokers to forecast the prices on the bases of findings.

The paper identifies the need to study why behavior of commodity returns varies over time.

This study serves two objectives; first, it examined the impact of ownership structure and board characteristics on firm value; second, the moderating effects of board gender diversity (women appearance on board) and board ethnic diversity (Chinese, Indian, and Foreign ethnicities) have been examined on the relationship between ownership structure, board characteristics, and firm value.

The dynamic model, system generalized method of moments (S-GMM hereafter), is employed to control potential dynamic endogeneity, reverse causality, simultaneity and unobserved heterogeneity persistent in corporate governance-performance relationships during 2006–2017 of 483 Malaysian listed companies.

Findings pertaining to objective one reveal that there is a weak linkage between ownership structure and firm value, whereas board characteristics significantly affect firm performance based on resource dependence theory. While considering the results of objective two, there is mixed evidence of moderating impact of board gender and ethnic diversity on ownership structure, board characteristics and performance nexus.

The findings of the study are practically significant for regulatory bodies, namely, Bursa Malaysia, Securities Commission (SC) Malaysia, and policymakers to develop guidelines for ownership structure variables. Moreover, Malaysian firms need to disperse their concentrated ownership structure for enhanced firm value. In addition, board characteristics significantly affect firm performance in Malaysian listed companies.

The paper contributes to multiple aspects: first, it examined the impact of ownership structure and board characteristics on firm performance. Second, the moderating effect of board gender and board ethnic diversity contributes to research significant and valuable for the researchers and practitioners. Finally, the study employed S-GMM, controlling for dynamic endogeneity considered a main econometric problem for CG-performance relationships.

Growing attention of policymakers, governments and regulation authorities towards climate change and global warming has spurred the extensive need to carefully examine the current practices of green and sustainable finance. This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis on the current state and future directions of green and sustainable finance through bibliometric analysis.

For extensive bibliometric analysis, the study comprises 1,413 documents published in peer-reviewed journals indexed in the SCOPUS database for the period ranging from 1990 to 2021.

The authors find that there are mainly three key areas of green and sustainable finance, which are largely addressed by the scholars following the given time. The key areas include socially responsible investments, green finance and climate finance that are in line with the previous studies and existing trends and practices prevailing in the business and corporate world.

The findings are important for policymakers, regulatory bodies, upcoming scholars, environmentalists and investors as findings of the study provide an effective framework for adopting sustainable strategies, to trade-off between profits and environmental hazards and to generate value from the green avenues of research and practice.

The study offers novel contributions to the existing literature in terms of comprehensively providing evidence of the current practices of green and sustainable finance. Meanwhile, significant implications for the prospective audience further refine the contribution of research.