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The purpose of this paper is to deal with the problem of integration of production and maintenance policies. In this context, the authors consider production systems made of parallel machines producing a single product over a finite horizon made of equal periods for which a forecasted demand is known. The authors investigate the impact of switching production in case of failure of any given machine.

A mathematical model is first developed to find an optimal production plan which minimizes the average total storage, shortage and production costs. Then, using this optimal production plan and taking into account the influence of the production rate on the degradation of each machine, optimal preventive maintenance (PM) policies are proposed for the situations with and without switching.

Optimal production rates are determined for each production period and for each machine. Optimal PM periods are also computed for each machine.

Usually, in manufacturing systems, the production rate of a machine influences its failure rate. In case a machine fails, it takes a random time to repair it during which production is lost. The paper attempts to propose a switching policy (SP) according to which the lost production is compensated by all the other machines. The effects of the SP coupled with the PM strategy are shown through a numerical example.

Contrarily to previous works, the authors consider more realistic settings with a non-negligible random time for repairing failed machines. In order to compensate the lost production during the repair of a failed machine, a SP is proposed to transfer the load uniformly to all the other machines. As a result, those machines will produce at a higher production rate and will consequently have their failure rate increased. It will therefore be essential to determine an optimal PM schedule knowing that durations of these activities are not negligible. It is shown that the simultaneous implementation of periodic PM and load transfer in case of failure is the most economical integrated strategy.

Seasonal influenza epidemics accounted for significant morbidity and mortality loads worldwide despite the availability of a safe vaccine as an efficient tool against severity of the disease. However, the uptake of the latter was sub-optimal. This study aims to identify predictors and barriers related to seasonal influenza vaccine uptake in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

A cross-sectional study enrolled 502 individuals attending primary healthcare centers in Bahrain for ambulatory care between July and August 2022. The data were collected using an interviews-based questionnaire which included questions on demographic data, knowledge and attitudes and practices toward influenza vaccine. The authors identified the barriers as well as the determinants of the vaccine uptake and its recommendation to others.

The mean age of participants was 35.07 years (SD = 13.9). Most of the respondents were Bahraini (86.5%) and 53.4 % were females. The results revealed that 34.1% have previous information about the influenza vaccine and 36.9% versus 69.9% are willing to receive the vaccine or advice it to others, respectively. Determinants of vaccine uptake were identified.

This study confirmed a sub-optimal influenza vaccine acceptance in the general community of Bahrain despite a global access in primary care. Health professionals need to be more proactive in mobilizing the community and particularly females toward influenza vaccination.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

This research investigates the Islamic banks’ intermediation role (e.g. branches and deposits) in financing. It also examines how financing contributes to the regions' economic growth and poverty alleviation as a predictor and mediator variable.

A total of 297 observations were extracted from 33 Indonesian districts and 14 Islamic banks during the period 2012–2020. Fixed-effect regression analysis was used to examine variable’s interactions.

The empirical results indicate that Islamic banks have adopted a channelling role towards redistributing capital from lender to borrower. Besides, there are crucial roles in developing economies and reducing poverty at the district level. This study also reinforces the critical role of financing in mediating the relationship between branches and deposits as predictor variables and GDP and poverty as outcome variables.

The current study was limited to Indonesian Islamic banks and the district’s perspective. Future research needs to cover sub-districts and other poverty measurements (e.g. human education and development perspectives), including conventional and Islamic banks. It can help practitioners, regulators and researchers observe the dynamic behaviour of the banking sector to understand its role in the economic and social fields.

Bank managers and regulators should promote branches, deposits and financing. It also enlightens people about the essential role of Islamic banks and their fundamental operations in business and economics.

This study contributes to economic literature, bank managers and local governments' decision-making processes by developing and testing an economic growth and poverty model.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of total quality management (TQM) practices on the work-related attitudes of International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) staff, including job involvement, job satisfaction, career satisfaction and organisational commitment.

The paper developed and tested 16 hypotheses on the relationship between TQM practices and work-related attitudes. Out of 295 targeted staff working for 59 INGOs operating in Jordan, 126 staff have responded to the research questionnaire. The collected dataset has been analysed using the structural equation modelling-partial least square (SEM-PLS) technique.

Analysis of the data revealed the significant positive effect of TQM practices. Beneficiary focus, empowerment-teamwork and continuous improvement impact 35% of job involvement. Meanwhile, beneficiary focus and empowerment-teamwork affect 34 and 47% of career satisfaction and organisational commitment, respectively. Significantly, empowerment-teamwork and continuous improvement determine 62% of job satisfaction. However, the low extent of training and education is challenging to enhance employees' positive emotions.

This research provides further evidence on the importance of TQM practices to the leaders of INGOs. Therefore, to orient their resources towards TQM implementation to enhance work-related attitudes, and in turn, the performance of interventions in this challenging sector.

This research extends the knowledge regarding certain TQM practices that naturally and variably empower job and career satisfaction, job involvement, and organisational commitment within the INGOs. Therefore, to confirm the validity of this research direction in a new uncovered sector, which has its own specificities.

Islamic finance is an alternative approach of financial intermediation based on risk-sharing and asset-backed operations, which evolved substantially in recent years in academic research raising the need for quantitative studies to address the intellectual development and scientific performance of this field. This study aims to provide quantitative statistics and comprehensive review of the key influential and intellectual structure of Islamic finance literature.

The authors apply the trending and cutting-edge quali-quantitative approach of bibliometric citation analysis. This study reviews 1,940 English studies and review papers published in scientific journals indexed by the Scopus database from 1983 to 2019. RStudio, VOSviewer and Excel’s software are used to analyze the collected data and apply the bibliometric tests.

The results identify the leading academic authors, journals, institutions and countries with relation to Islamic finance. The authors also propose six main research themes in this field, which are as follows: Islamic finance – fundamentals, growth and legitimacy; customer’s attitude and perception toward Islamic finance; accounting and social reporting of Islamic finance; performance and risk management of Islamic finance; Islamic financial markets; and efficiency of Islamic financial institutions. Lastly, the authors identify research gaps in the existing Islamic finance literature and present 24 future research directions.

The data in this study is confined only to the Scopus database of English papers and reviews. It also considers papers directly related to the field of Islamic finance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first to address the literature of Islamic finance from a bibliometric aspect. The results of this study along with future research questions will help researchers and practitioners to further explore and stand on firm quantitative bases regarding the scientific development of Islamic finance.