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In real-world decision-making, high accuracy data analysis is essential in a ubiquitous environment. However, we encounter missing data while collecting user-related data information because of various privacy concerns on account of a user. This paper aims to deal with incomplete data for fuzzy model identification, a new method of parameter estimation of a Takagi–Sugeno model in the presence of missing features.

In this work, authors proposed a three-fold approach for fuzzy model identification in which imputation-based linear interpolation technique is used to estimate missing features of the data, and then fuzzy c-means clustering is used for determining optimal number of rules and for the determination of parameters of membership functions of the fuzzy model. Finally, the optimization of the all antecedent and consequent parameters along with the width of the antecedent (Gaussian) membership function is done by gradient descent algorithm based on the minimization of root mean square error.

The proposed method is tested on two well-known simulation examples as well as on a real data set, and the performance is compared with some traditional methods. The result analysis and statistical analysis show that the proposed model has achieved a considerable improvement in accuracy in the presence of varying degree of data incompleteness.

The proposed method works well for fuzzy model identification method, a new method of parameter estimation of a Takagi–Sugeno model in the presence of missing features with varying degree of missing data as compared to some well-known methods.

This paper aims to study students' strategic behaviors for increasing their job prospect in response to university administrators' moves for lifting up institutional reputation in the academia.

A Stackelberg differential game is used to study this strategic interplay between administrators and students. In this game, an administrator maximizes institutional quality to build university reputation while student maximizes grades to increase their job prospects. Therefore, administrators being the leader move first while students set strategies for maximizing their objective function by following administrators' move.

The study produces several distinctive results by analyzing administrator–students’ strategic interactions. First, university administrators need to be sufficiently more impatient for building reputation by improving institutional quality than students’ impatience for increasing their job prospects to have feasible solutions. Second, students attempt to increase academic grades for making them more marketable in response to administrators’ additional efforts for increasing their students’ job prospects. Third, exogenous increase in university reputation improves institutional quality and students’ job prospects without affecting their academic grades. However, increase in job prospects motivates students to increase their grades. Fourth, administrators’ too much impatience for increasing university reputation could inflate students’ grade, reduce job prospect and degrade institutional quality. Fifth, an exogenous rise in students’ impatience improves institutional quality and students’ job prospects but reduces students’ grades. Finally, the exogenous increase in opportunity cost of securing good grade degrades institutional quality, thus reducing further job prospects. Therefore, administrators’ positive but moderate impatience for reputation will improve students’ academic performances, institutional quality and job prospects.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyze students’ strategic responses for improving their job prospects in response to administrators’ actions for enhancing university reputation. It helps administrators to design an effective framework for building university reputation in the academic market through improving institutional quality and expanding job markets for their students.

The study seeks to conduct an empirical investigation on the impact of entrepreneurship education (EE) through its components, i.e. entrepreneurial knowledge (EK) and business planning (BP) on entrepreneurial intentions (EI) in India.

An electronic questionnaire was used to collect data from 340 engineering students and partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the collected data.

The findings revealed that EK and BP have no direct impact on EI, however, they have an indirect influence through attitude towards entrepreneurship (ATE) and perceived behavioral control (PBC), whereas subjective norms (SN) have no mediation impact on the relationships.

This research has been conducted on students of engineering background only, future studies can be carried out by incorporating more attitudinal and environmental determinants with larger data sizes from diverse educational streams.

This study is of immense significance to policymakers and educational establishments in designing the purposefully designed EE courses that can drive the entrepreneurial intentionality of students.

The study adds to the paucity of research on the systematic elaboration of EE construct underlining the specific impact of EK and BP as EE dimensions on students' EI. To the best of authors' awareness, this kind of investigation has not been conducted in indian higher educational institution (HEI) context.

Rising production costs in coastal China have caused the popularity of the “China plus one” strategy, and the hike in oil prices favors near‐shore outsourcing to reduce transportation costs. Taking into consideration supply chain strategy, this paper aims to investigate the impacts of these major business environment changes on manufacturing outsourcing in China.

Considering costs and lead times, a bi‐objective integer programming model is developed to determine optimal supply chain configuration decisions under various business environment scenarios. A case study with a family of footwear products is used to illustrate model application and present detailed analyses.

Impacts of factors could be non‐intuitive. Partial relocation may be better than relocating all manufacturing steps to lower‐cost regions. Coastal China is still attractive for products with short order lead times, because of its formation of industrial clusters and efficient logistics services.

Only tangible factors including costs and lead times are evaluated; however, they offer valuable insight for the strategic decision of selecting outsourcing locations.

The analyses suggest differentiated outsourcing strategies depending on product and demand characteristics. The trend of moving manufacturing away from China is exaggerated. Coastal China has established industrial clusters and efficient logistics support to enable supply chain responsiveness; while inland China maintains a low cost comparable with competing Asian countries.

Existing studies on the research phenomenon focused on cost factors alone. This paper analyzes lead times as well. The study also introduces the network perspective into the research of offshore manufacturing outsourcing.

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) enables providers and customers to communicate without a fixed infrastructure. Databases are extended on MANETs to have easy data access and update. As the energy and mobility limitations of both servers and clients affect the availability of data in MANETs, these data are replicated. The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review of data replication issues and classify the available strategies based on the issues they addressed.

The selected articles are reviewed based on the defined criteria. Also, the differences, the advantages and disadvantages of these techniques are described. The methods in the literature can be categorized into three groups, including cluster-based, location-based and group-based mechanisms.

High flexibility and data consistency are the features of cluster-based mechanisms. The location-based mechanisms are also appropriate for replica allocation, and they mostly have low network traffic and delay. Also, the group-based mechanism has high data accessibility compared to other mechanisms. Data accessibility and time have got more attention to data replication techniques. Scalability as an important parameter must be considered more in the future. The reduction of storage cost in MANETs is the main goal of data replication. Researchers have to consider the cost parameter when another parameter will be influenced.

Data replication in MANETs has been covered in different available sources such as Web pages, technical reports, academic publications and editorial notes. The articles published in national journals and conferences are ignored in this study. This study includes articles from academic main international journals to get the best capability.

The paper reviews the past and the state-of-the-art mechanisms in data replication in MANET. Exclusively, data replication’s main goal, existing challenges, research terminologies and mechanisms in MANET are summarized using the answers to the research questions. This method will help researchers in the future to develop more effective data replication method in MANET.

Co-operative managers must invest appropriately to strengthen member relationships, such as by initiating corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions or providing members with more relational benefits. This paper aims to investigate how members’ motives (collectivistic vs individualistic) might influence the effectiveness of these investments in terms of enhancing members’ trust and loyalty intentions.

This research combines an exploratory approach, based on six focus groups, with a confirmatory approach based on a field study and two scenario-based experiments.

Members tend to regard the two motives in contest and infer a “more CSR versus more benefits” arbitration effort by co-operatives, such that they appear to prioritize one motive over the other. Members with individualistic motives principally support co-operatives’ arbitration toward relational benefits, so the positive effects of CSR initiatives on their trust and loyalty intentions are weaker (Study 1). Both CSR and relational benefits can be more or less efficient, depending on members’ motives (Study 2).

Reflecting their contrasting motives, members infer arbitration by co-operative managers, reflected in their “more CSR versus more benefits” belief. This insight and the related implications for trust and loyalty intentions have not been addressed in prior research.

Managers can avoid the negative consequences of “more CSR versus more benefits” inferences by ensuring a good fit between their investments and their members’ prevailing motives. If members have more collectivistic (cf. individualistic) motives, CSR initiatives (cf. relational benefits) enhance their trust and loyalty intentions more effectively.

This research builds on previous work on members’ relationships within co-operatives and on members’ motives. Results find that the effectiveness of co-operatives’ investments to strengthen members’ loyalty intentions depends on members’ prior motives.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of working capital management (WCM) on profitability under different financial conditions (constraint/unconstraint) and WCM policy (aggressive/conservative). Furthermore, the study investigates the existence of optimal working capital levels under different financial conditions and WCM policy.

Two-step system generalized method of moments and fixed effect models are used to analyze the data collected from Prowess database from 2011 to 2020 for a sample of 1,104 Indian manufacturing companies.

The study finds an inverted U-shaped relationship between working capital and profitability in all financial conditions and working capital policy. This finding advocates the existence of an optimal level of working capital that equates the costs and benefits of holding working capital to maximize the companies’ profitability. However, holding working capital beyond the optimal level negatively affects profitability. Companies under financial constraints with aggressive working capital policies have the lowest optimal cash conversion cycle (CCC). Furthermore, the relationship of working capital with profitability and the optimal CCC varies owing to firm age and industry group.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that incorporates the impact of working capital on firm’s performance from both financial constraint (unconstraint) and aggressive (conservative) working capital policy perspectives in the Indian context. Furthermore, this study also contributes in terms of reflecting the effect of firm age and industry in determining the optimum CCC of the firms.

The concept of sustainability has been gaining importance globally due to the growing environmental concerns and rising support from the nations to conserve the planet. Particularly for a country like India, this approach is highly relevant for combating the increasing stress on different sectors of the society due to the growing population. Solid waste management is an important sector that requires an immediate attention in the current context. Implementation of integrated sustainable waste management approach minimizes the waste and provides economic benefits, through best suitable method for managing the waste. In the present scenario, it is difficult for local bodies to apply this approach throughout the country due to diverse conditions and financial constraints. However this approach can be implemented through decentralization of solid waste management by the local bodies at a small scale. Technical institutes have a greater role to play in the society by nurturing the young minds about the need and ways to develop a sustainable society. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The study area discussed in this paper is Jaypee University of Engineering and Technology situated on Agra-Mumbai national highway, Guna district, Madhya Pradesh, India. It covers an area of 125 acres and houses a population more than 3,000. The present work discusses about the development of strategic plan for sustainable waste management on the campus through the characterization and analysis of waste samples collected from academic buildings, hostels, mess, shopping complex and residential areas for beneficial utilization.

The study revealed that potential benefits such as biogas generation from organic waste, resource optimization through 3R concept (reduce, reuse and recycle) from paper, plastics, cardboard, glass, metals, etc. could be derived by adopting suitable waste management strategy.

The present work discusses the feasible options for the efficient utilization of the components of solid waste through integrated solid waste management system. The university with its diverse nature of wastes generated from academic buildings, hostels, mess, shopping complex and residential areas; provides a good opportunity to understand the options for sustainable waste management on the campus for wider applications.