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The search for new techniques to teach English nowadays has been more than ever. These techniques have to be interesting and enjoyable in order to lower the anxiety levels of students when learning English (Bakhsh, 2016). That is why many scholars and teachers look forward to integrating technology into language teaching. Social media platforms (SMPs) are among these techniques since millions of people around the world utilize them for daily interaction. Yet, teaching English for specific purposes (ESPs) relies on learners’ needs and employs an eclectic approach in delivering its course content. For this reason, the current study reviewed articles that tackled the topic of teaching or learning ESP from SMPs so as to uncover their effect and the attitude or motivation of learners.

The researchers used the PRISMA flowchart model in order to identify, screen and include articles in the study.

The results revealed that SMPs are effective in teaching and learning ESP writing, speaking and vocabulary. Yet, the included studies showed that learners’ attitude toward SMPs is positive as they believe that they are motivating and interesting.

Some aspects of social media have turned out to be beneficial in the learning process and they need further investigation from ESP practitioners and scholars.

According to the study, it is crystal clear that the various social networks and platforms are beneficial and helpful for improving ESP productive skills.

The purpose of this study is to examine and review tayyiban indicators in the context of halal food production. In Islam, food produced or manufactured must be halal and tayyiban. Even though both halal and tayyiban are always mentioned together in the Quran, the halal aspect is highlighted more than tayyiban. The discussion of tayyiban’s indicators is still vague.

The study was adopted based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for the review of the current research which used two main journal databases, namely, Web of Science and Scopus. Accordingly, the search resulted in a total of 40 articles that can be systematically examined.

The results of review of these articles formulated five main themes: safety, nutrition, cleanliness, quality and authenticity. These five indicators are considered relevant enough in the context of halal food production to build a comprehensive tayyiban concept.

This study enriches the field of halal food research. The concept of tayyiban as a whole has been given limited attention in academic literature. At the end of this study, a number of recommendations are suggested for the reference of future scholars.

Long time ago, multistructured materials showed great interest being considered as the bridge between bulk and atomic materials. Core-shell particles are kind of composite materials that refer to multilayered structures with a core totally surrounded by shell(s) (onion-like structure). These new structures can offer an advantage of applying new adjustable parameters like shape, stoichiometry and chemical ordering, in addition to the opportunity of tailoring more complexed structures for different applications. Recently it was found that these structures can be tuned and taken for more advanced path with novel structures formed of core surrounded by multishells. The purpose of this study is to study the effect of the new anticorrosive pigments with its mutual shells and how each shell affects the performance of the pigment in protecting the metal and which shell will be more relevant in its effect.

The prepared pigments were characterized using X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, TEM and SEM/EDX to prove their core-shell structure, and then they were integrated in coating formulations to evaluate their anticorrosive activity using immersion test and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS).

The results showed that the prepared core-shell pigments possess a lot of unique characteristics and can offer improved anticorrosive performance in the generated coatings.

Core-mutual shells structured pigments were prepared for improving the corrosion resistivity of the organic coatings as a new trend in anticorrosive pigments.

The purpose of this study is to formulate a governance and regulatory framework for Islamic crypto assets (ICAs). A balanced regulatory framework is required to protect consumers and to encourage digital Islamic finance innovation.

This study focuses on Indonesia and compares it to other countries, specifically Malaysia and the UK, using statutory, comparative and conceptual research approaches.

The ICAs are permissible (halal) commodities/assets to be traded if they fulfil the standards as goods or commodities that can be traded with a sale and purchase contract (sil’ah) and have an underlying asset (backed by tangible assets such as gold). Islamic social finance activities such as zakat and Islamic microfinance activities such as halal industry are backed by ICAs. The regulatory framework needed to support ICAs includes the Islamic Financial Services Act, shariah supervisory boards, shariah governance standards and ICA exchanges.

This study only examined crypto assets (tokens as securities) and not cryptocurrencies. It used regulations in several countries with potential in Islamic finance development, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the UK.

The ICA regulatory framework is helpful as an element of a comprehensive strategy to develop a lasting Islamic social finance ecosystem.

The development of crypto assets must be supported by a regulatory framework to protect consumers and encourage innovation in Islamic digital finance.

ICA has growth prospects; however, weak regulatory support and minimal oversight indicate weak legal protection for consumers and investors. Regulating ICA, optimising supervision, implementing shariah governance standards and having ICA exchanges can strengthen the Islamic economic ecosystem.

The widespread lockdown restrictions brought by the global COVID-19 epidemic inculcated a culture of “work-from-home”. However, most rural areas lack reliable and effective community amenities including transportation, health and education, thereby impeding healthy living and productive employment. Therefore, the underlying goal of this research is to investigate the development of smart infrastructure (SI) in non-urban areas. However, governments' resource limitations must be addressed to develop SI, which urges the research on the potential for public-private partnerships (PPP) to supplement public sector resources when necessary.

This paper examined and evaluated the “benefits and enablers” and “barriers” to deploying PPPs to create SI in non-urban areas, using a thorough literature review, five expert interviews and analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-based questionnaire responses. The AHP technique and content analysis were used to analyse the results and generate the conclusions.

The availability of a favourable investment climate and legal framework were identified as the significant factors among the “benefits and enablers” of adopting PPP in SI developments in non-urban areas, while low community acceptance of the private sector involvement, and community culture and values were identified as the significant factors among the “barriers”. These highlight the significance of removing barriers connected to community culture and “values”.

The findings and conclusions of this study provide a strong foundation to support the growth of SI in non-urban settings, facilitating more sustainable development that is more evenly distributed in the post-COVID-19 future.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the asymmetric effects of financial risk on Sukuk market development for a sample of Malaysian countries over the period of 2010–2021.

This study refers to the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) in determining the financial risk factors to be studied in addition to the Malaysia financial stress index (FSI) to capture changes in financial risk level. The authors use the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model to tackle the nonlinear relationships between identified financial risk variables and Sukuk market development.

The results suggest the existence of a long-run relationship between foreign debt service stability, international liquidity stability (ILS), exchange rate stability (ERS) and financial stress level with the Sukuk market development in Malaysia. Indeed, higher ILS and ERS will boost Sukuk market size, whereas higher foreign debt services and financial stress are negatively related to Sukuk market development. Findings also indicate that the long-run positive and negative impacts of identified financial risk components on Sukuk market development are statistically different. Taking into account the role of the Sukuk market in facilitating Malaysia’s economic growth, the country should aim to keep the foreign debt-to-GDP ratio at a sustainable level.

This study points to three possible directions for future research. The first is the differential impact of financial risk components on Sukuk issuance for different Sukuk structures. As more data becomes available in the future, this area could be further explored by conducting the above analysis for different combinations of Sukuk structures and currency denominations. In addition, future researchers could also consider exploring the variability of financial risk impacts through comparative studies of the leading Sukuk-issuing countries to account for differences in regulatory frameworks and supporting infrastructure.

This study provides valuable practical and policy implications for strengthening the growth of the Sukuk market. While benefiting from the diversification benefits of funding sources to finance private or government projects and developments, Malaysia should remain vigilant to global economic conditions, foreign exchange markets and financial stress levels, as all of these factors may significantly influence investor sentiment and the rate of return offered by Sukuk issuance.

The use of the NARDL approach, which investigates the long-run effects of financial risk factors on Sukuk market development in Malaysia, makes this study a valuable addition to the literature, as there has been little research into the asymmetric effects of those variables on Sukuk market development using samples from emerging Asian markets.

The purpose of this paper is to rank critical risks and determine major categories of risks to be considered by public–private partnerships (PPPs) investors when investing in “smart” transportation infrastructure. Such investment is sorely needed in many mega cities around the world currently suffering from serious impacts of traffic congestion, pollution and lack of usability of transport systems.

The study used literature review focused upon smart transportation infrastructure projects financed by PPP arrangements to create a questionnaire which was refined by subject matter experts and then completed by 126 experienced respondents. Exploratory factor analysis was used to create major categories emerging from the collected data. Interviews with ten experts were used to validate the findings.

The most highly major ranked risks shared by these participants were lack of expertise in complex project implementation, political interference, lack of PPP project data and lack of a collaboration mechanism between government and private sectors. Factor analysis showed that in terms of risk likelihood, stakeholder engagement, implementation process issues, the natural environment, data-sharing and technology complexity emerged. In terms of risk impact, major factors were stakeholder engagement, trust versus resistance issues, the natural environment and factors concerning uncertainty.

This paper addresses a somewhat unexplored area, the risks involved in investing in PPP smart transportation infrastructure. Such infrastructure projects are embedded in their environments, and approaches using a complexity lens can emerge overriding risk concerns for investors when undertaking such projects.

Multi-view fuzzy clustering algorithms are not widely used in image segmentation, and many of these algorithms are lacking in robustness. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a new algorithm that can segment the image better and retain as much detailed information about the image as possible when segmenting noisy images.

The authors present a novel multi-view fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm that includes an automatic view-weight learning mechanism. Firstly, this algorithm introduces a view-weight factor that can automatically adjust the weight of different views, thereby allowing each view to obtain the best possible weight. Secondly, the algorithm incorporates a weighted fuzzy factor, which serves to obtain local spatial information and local grayscale information to preserve image details as much as possible. Finally, in order to weaken the effects of noise and outliers in image segmentation, this algorithm employs the kernel distance measure instead of the Euclidean distance.

The authors added different kinds of noise to images and conducted a large number of experimental tests. The results show that the proposed algorithm performs better and is more accurate than previous multi-view fuzzy clustering algorithms in solving the problem of noisy image segmentation.

Most of the existing multi-view clustering algorithms are for multi-view datasets, and the multi-view fuzzy clustering algorithms are unable to eliminate noise points and outliers when dealing with noisy images. The algorithm proposed in this paper has stronger noise immunity and can better preserve the details of the original image.

This study aims to investigate the behavior of the green biomass-derived copper (lignin/silica/fatty acids) complex, copper lignin/silica/fatty acids (Cu-LSF) complex, when incorporated into the nonpolar ethylene propylene diene (EPDFM) rubber matrix, focusing on its reinforcing and antioxidant effect on the resulting EPDM composites.

The structure of the prepared EPDM composites was confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and the dispersion of the additive fillers and antioxidants in the EPDM matrix was investigated using scanning electron microscopy. Also, the rheometric characteristics, mechanical properties, swelling behavior and thermal gravimetric analysis of all the prepared EPDM composites were explored as well.

Results revealed that the Cu-LSF complex dispersed well in the nonpolar EPDM rubber matrix, in thepresence of coupling system, with enhanced Cu-LSF-rubber interactions and increased cross-linking density, which reflected on the improved rheological and mechanical properties of the resulting EPDM composites. From the various investigations performed in the current study, the authors can suggest 7–11 phr is the optimal effective concentration of Cu-LSF complex loading. Interestingly, EPDM composites containing Cu-LSF complex showed better antiaging performance, thermal stability and fluid resistance, when compared with those containing the commercial antioxidants (2,2,4-trimethyl-1,2-dihydroquinoline and N-isopropyl-N’-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine). These findings are in good agreement with our previous study on polar nitrile butadiene rubber.

The current study suggests the green biomass-derived Cu-LSF complex to be a promising low-cost and environmentally safe alternative filler and antioxidant to the hazardous commercial ones.

The purpose of this study to examine the factors that encourage/inhibit Muslim behavior in buying halal-certified food (HCF), based on two theories, the knowledge-attitude-behavior model and the attitude-behavior-context model; and study the impact of trust and perceived risk on Muslim behavior in buying HCF, and their role in moderating the relationship between halal awareness and religious commitment with Muslim behavior in buying HCF.

The research population target is Muslims aged 18 years or older who reside in Greater Jakarta and have purchased certified halal food at least once in the past month. The survey method is a self-administered survey using a purposive sampling technique. The online survey has been successful in getting 283 Muslim respondents. In analyzing the causal relationship and hypothesis testing, this research uses the partial least square – structural equation model.

This study reveals several results: attitude, halal awareness, religious commitment, trust and perceived risk have a significant influence on the frequency of Muslims buying HCF. Attitude mediates the impact of halal awareness, religious commitment and trust on the frequency of Muslims buying HCF; perceived risk and trust moderate the relationship between religious commitment and the frequency of Muslims buying HCF.

Research on halal food is still limited, including in Indonesia. Meanwhile, the study explores the actual behavior of consumers, particularly in a certified halal food context, which is still rare in the existing literature. At the same time, the intention-behavior gap can lead to wrong decisions. Furthermore, this study also studies how Muslims feel when they consume foods that are not certified as halal. Research like this has an immense opportunity to be developed because not many have been developed.