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This study explored the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on rural municipal police in Pennsylvania.

The authors surveyed rural police chiefs and sworn officers to inquire about their intra-department organizational capabilities, police-community relations, well-being practices, and how these strategies may have developed since March 2020.

The pandemic affected rural police officers and rural policing strategies in many ways. Moreover, existing challenges to limited rural police budgets were exacerbated suggesting a need for more flexible budgetary capacities, access to wellness resources were limited suggesting better access to these resources and preparation for responding to public health emergencies was limited suggesting more complete training is warranted.

This study draws attention to the unique experiences of rural municipal police across one state by capturing specific areas of concern throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

This study aimed to identify a specific taxonomy of entry modes for international construction contractors and to develop a decision-making mechanism based on case-based reasoning (CBR) to facilitate the selection of the most suitable entry modes.

According to the experience orientation of the construction industry, a CBR entry mode decision model was established, and based on successful historical cases, a two-step refinement process was carried out to identify similar situations. Then the validity of the model is proved by case analysis.

This study identified an entry mode taxonomy for international construction contractors (ICCs) and explored their decision-making mechanisms. First, a two-dimension model of entry mode for ICCs was constructed from ownership and value chain dimensions; seven common ICC entry modes were identified and ranked according to market commitment. Secondly, this study reveals the impact mechanism of the ICC entry mode from two aspects: the external environment and enterprise characteristics. Accordingly, an entry mode decision model is established.

Firstly, sorting out the categories of entry mode in the construction field, which provide an entry mode list for ICCs to select. Secondly, revealing the impact mechanism of ICC entry mode, which proposes a systematic decision-making system for the selection of ICC entry mode. Thirdly, constructing a CBR entry mode decision-making model from an empirical perspective, which offers tool support and reduces transaction costs in the decision-making process.

The study on entry modes for ICCs is still in the preliminary exploratory stage. The authors investigate the entry mode categories and decision-making mechanisms for ICCs based on Uppsala internationalization process theory. It widens the applied scope of Uppsala and promotes cross-disciplinary integration. In addition, the authors creatively propose a two-stage retrieval mechanism in the CBR model, which considers the order of decision variables. It refines the influence path of the decision variables on ICCs' entry mode.

This paper aims to consolidate the state of research on information behaviour. Regardless of the scholarly surge on information behaviour using numerous models and extended ones, gaps still exist on the development of more pragmatic frameworks that explain and/or predict the information behaviour across different fragmented environmental situations. Therefore, this paper extends technology-organization-environment (T-O-E) framework and synthesizes different research positions into a multi-dimensional framework that assists small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to understand their information behaviour and to make informed decisions on the adoption of emerging information communication technology (EICT).

This study deployed an inductive approach; data were generated from unstructured and semi-structured interviews with 20 participants drawn purposively from Luton directories.

This study developed a more integrated framework underpinned by T-O-E framework, which helped to identify how EICT adoption is critically shaped by perceived information need, information sources selection and the factors determining information source selection.

Qualitative research is normally subjective, inductive, interpretive and limited on the sample used. However, because of the limited number of interviews used, as well as industry-specific nature of the study, the generalization of the framework and the findings will be difficult, hence, the need to test the framework on a broader population and cross-context testing.

The T-O-E framework is extended to Expectancy (T-O-E-E) to provide a more robust insight into information behaviour of SMEs from a multi-dimensional perspective. It also offers a more analytical framework for exploring critical issues identified and demonstrates the capacity to provide a reliable explanation to the findings. Further, it serves as a tool for assessing the benefits or challenges of SMEs information behaviour especially on the EICT adoption decision.

Drawing on an organizational learning perspective, this paper examines the effect of levels of foreign market involvement (intensity and geographic spread) on internationalization outcomes recognizing that the moderating influence of entry-mode learning potential is not well documented in the literature on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The sample includes 180 SMEs evenly selected from three industries: biotechnology, software and clothing (60 firms in each industry). The sampled firms employ less than 250 employees and are equally distributed between three developed economies and three emerging economies. All were engaged in foreign business.

The authors find that there is a direct relationship between levels of foreign market involvement and internationalization outcomes. Entry-mode learning potential moderates the relationship between intensity of foreign market involvement and internationalization outcomes but not the relationship between geographic spread and internationalization outcomes.

This study reveals several new insights that help explain the pathway through which foreign market involvement activities are translated into internationalization outcomes.

The authors conclude that the positive relationship between intensity of foreign market involvement and internationalization outcomes is strengthened when SMEs also use an entry mode with a higher learning potential than exporting only.

The significance of smart mobility practices in shaping cities from a smart perspective has grown in recent years, influencing policies and the choices made by inhabitants. This transformation has led to the emergence of novel services and strategies, creating a new, vibrant and highly personalised urban environment that caters to the needs and preferences of both local residents and visitors. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence of smart mobility practices on tourism flows in cities, considering the moderating effect of airport activities on this relationship.

Using a generalised method of moments estimation and focusing on 20 Italian cities over an eight-year period, the authors highlight the current relationship between smart mobility practices and tourism flows. Moreover, the authors demonstrate that the yearly advancement of airports positively moderates this relationship.

The findings indicate a significant relationship between smart mobility practices in modern cities and tourism inflows because they influence the development of tourism services and emerging trends such as smart tourism and smart destinations. Furthermore, airport activities as a proxy for city openness play a crucial role in this link. The study shows that airports have an incremental impact on tourism and on the relationship between tourism and sustainable practices.

The limitations of this quantitative approach include the focus on a single country, the challenge of measuring the development of smart mobility practices due to a lack of standardised variables and the need for future research to expand the sample to different countries in relation to tourism inflows.

This study has practical implications for policymakers and governance in their task of effectively coordinating internal smart mobility practices and managing incoming tourism flows.

This study has social implications, highlighting the need for policymakers and governance to address the societal impacts of smart mobility practices and tourism inflows, ensuring inclusive and sustainable outcomes for local communities.

This study contributes to the existing literature as one of the first attempts to examine the interplay between smart mobility practices in smart cities and tourism flows. Furthermore, it emphasises the role of airports in this relationship, highlighting how the interaction between these variables benefits both stakeholders.

We present the results of one of the only in-depth studies of a police agency’s internal and external response to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 (COVID-19). This study emphasizes the importance of law enforcement agencies conducting comprehensive case studies and after-action assessments to prepare, prevent and respond to prolonged public health crises and showcases the profound (and lingering) effects of COVID-19 on police organizations.

This multi-method case study combines document analysis, a workforce survey, a community survey, interviews and analysis of administrative data to detail and assess the agency’s internal and operational responses to the pandemic and the reactions of employees and community members to those responses.

Despite agency strategies to mitigate the pandemic’s effects, employees cited very high stress levels one year after the pandemic and a third of sworn officers considered leaving the policing profession altogether during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several policies intended by the agency to protect employee health and maintain staffing needs kept workforce levels steady but may have increased feelings of organizational injustice in both sworn and non-sworn individuals, with variation across racial and gender groups. A jurisdiction-wide community survey indicated general support for the police department’s responses but a preference for in-person rather than telephone-based responses to service calls. Officers, however, preferred continuing remote responses even after the pandemic subsided.

To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the only in-depth case studies that examine a police agency’s internal and external responses to COVID-19 and the sworn, non-sworn and community reactions to those responses.

The varying nature of the competitive environment of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), contributing significantly to gross domestic product in most countries, has made their moving toward internationalization and global competition unavoidable in such a way that the life cycle of research in this area is experiencing a period of rapid growth. This study aims to evaluate the status of research on SME internationalization based on bibliographic records retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus.

Using a scientometric analysis, reviewing the important points and the boundaries of research on SME internationalization as well as practicing co-occurrence and burst detection analysis.

Through a rigorous examination of the crucial points and boundaries within the realm of SMEs internationalization research, coupled with an analysis of co-occurrence and burst detection techniques to detect contemporary hotbed topics, this study has uncovered that the predominant focus of current discourse centers around the areas of networks and networking, as well as internationalization models and entry into the global arena. Moreover, it gives insight that future investigations will shift toward enhancing SME internationalization performance, while simultaneously prioritizing the expeditiousness of their entrance into international markets. The insights garnered from this inquiry are expected to facilitate salient contributions to future literature in this area, thereby advancing our understanding of these complex phenomena.

The trend of the research in this field can be useful for enthusiasts. In this context, the life cycle of research on SME internationalization has been drawn that shows the period of research growth of publications is almost between 2005 and 2023, and the saturation will be approximately from 2023 to 2035. The top researching SME internationalization in the world have been occurred in the USA, England, Canada, Sweden countries and in Department of Management, Department of Marketing, School of Management, Faculty of Management Studies institutions. Also, most of the research has been published in Journal of International Business Studies, International Business Review and Strategic Management Journal.

This study accordingly provided a valuable perspective for future research in this line.

Nowadays, food problems are likely to arise because of the increasing global population and decreasing arable land. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the yield of agricultural products. Pesticides can be used to improve agricultural land products. This study aims to make the spraying of cherry trees more effective and efficient with the designed artificial intelligence (AI)-based agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Two approaches have been adopted for the AI-based detection of cherry trees: In approach 1, YOLOv5, YOLOv7 and YOLOv8 models are trained with 70, 100 and 150 epochs. In Approach 2, a new method is proposed to improve the performance metrics obtained in Approach 1. Gaussian, wavelet transform (WT) and Histogram Equalization (HE) preprocessing techniques were applied to the generated data set in Approach 2. The best-performing models in Approach 1 and Approach 2 were used in the real-time test application with the developed agricultural UAV.

In Approach 1, the best F1 score was 98% in 100 epochs with the YOLOv5s model. In Approach 2, the best F1 score and mAP values were obtained as 98.6% and 98.9% in 150 epochs, with the YOLOv5m model with an improvement of 0.6% in the F1 score. In real-time tests, the AI-based spraying drone system detected and sprayed cherry trees with an accuracy of 66% in Approach 1 and 77% in Approach 2. It was revealed that the use of pesticides could be reduced by 53% and the energy consumption of the spraying system by 47%.

An original data set was created by designing an agricultural drone to detect and spray cherry trees using AI. YOLOv5, YOLOv7 and YOLOv8 models were used to detect and classify cherry trees. The results of the performance metrics of the models are compared. In Approach 2, a method including HE, Gaussian and WT is proposed, and the performance metrics are improved. The effect of the proposed method in a real-time experimental application is thoroughly analyzed.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically examine and organize the literature that has explored the effects of several environmental conditions (ECs) on mergers and acquisitions (M&As), in particular highlighting the increasing role of protectionism.

The systematic literature review methodology was applied for the purpose of identifying, analyzing and interrelating specific ECs that affect M&As, thereby underlining and elucidating the requisite role of protectionism. Specifically, this research is based on 51 methodically selected peer-reviewed articles published from 1991 to 2020.

The research summarizes and assesses the current state of relevant literature through comprehensive and coherent descriptive and thematic analysis. The proposed conceptual framework allows us to recognize the connections between M&As and external conditions, highlighting varying degrees of study and in-depth analysis across the different areas under consideration.

This study contributes to original and significant knowledge, by developing a conceptual framework that descriptively classifies existing knowledge; by defining refining and explicating the theoretical foundations for scholars to build on; by identifying the research gaps and proposing effective avenues for impactful further research; and by presenting practitioners and policymakers with a practical guide to implementation.

This study aims to investigate the connections between the adoption of technology, user experience (UX), financial transparency and accountability, specifically focusing on the moderating influence of cultural sensitivity in the Jordanian context.

This study gathered data from 272 participants who are working in the operational Islamic banks in Jordan. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used for the hypotheses testing.

The results indicate that cultural sensitivity plays a significant role in shaping the UX, consequently influencing perceptions of financial transparency and accountability in e-Islamic finance within the metaverse. This study underscores the intricate interplay between technological advancements, adherence to Sharia principles and diverse cultural expectations, forming the crux of the research.

This research brings a novel perspective by examining the complex connections among technology adoption, UX, financial transparency and accountability, specifically within the distinctive context of Jordan. This research study innovates by checking out how social sensitivity moderates these partnerships, specifically in the context of e-Islamic finance in the metaverse. It adds value to the academic area by shedding light on the intricate interaction between technological development, adherence to Sharia concepts and differing cultural expectations. Ultimately, this adds to a much deeper understanding of the multifaceted nature of this domain.