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Platform‐independent low‐cost instant messaging (IM) may allow small businesses with limited financial and technical resources to communicate and collaborate internally and externally. Little research has been done investigating IM in the small business context. This study seeks to address this research gap and to investigate how small businesses respond to and actively exploit the opportunities brought by IM.

Two comparative case studies were conducted with two US small businesses. The research sites were selected based on the companies' IM usage pattern. Multiple data collecting methods were used including observation, interview, and IM transcripts. Open coding and qualitative data analysis were employed to get rich descriptive findings about IM usage.

IM was found beneficial to small businesses in several ways. The IM usage management is more a managerial issue than a technical one and a set of organizational and managerial factors were identified critical to the achievements of these benefits.

This paper addresses a research gap and investigates the under‐researched IM management issue. The study shows that creative and constructive usage of IM could bring a variety of organizational benefits to small businesses. The findings of this study provide guidance to IM researchers and small business practitioners as to how small businesses can manage IM to exploit its benefits. The comparative study method employed by this study also identifies situations where the utility of IM usage could be limited.

According to the unique style and historical significance, Chinese ancient architecture which has a long history, plays an important role in world architecture. Most of Chinese ancient architecture uses wooden frame as a load-bearing system, however, a unique combination of components has emerged in its development. Due to the well-preserved ancient buildings and a long historical and cultural background of Qijiang ancient town, the paper takes the Qijiang ancient town as an example through field measurement and investigation. The composition of the external environment of the building, architectural characteristics and building monomer composition were analyzed and studied. The unique architectural art charm of Qijiang ancient town was showed. Moreover, the delimitation of the protection scope mainly includes the scope of protected areas and the scope of the construction control zone. Among them, the protected areas are generally divided into key protected areas and general protected areas; the construction control zones are generally divided into Type I of construction control zone and Type II of construction control zones. Ancient buildings are the most existing heritage types in China and are an important part of the immovable cultural relics in China. The group layout of ancient buildings is an important feature in the layout of ancient buildings in China, which is conducive to the realization of the overall protection of heritage.

People with energy poverty are denied the modern energy services such as cooking, lighting, heating, cooling and communication. These needs are all crucial to maintaining an acceptable level of living standards. This paper aims to examine the effects of energy poverty on health and education.

This systematic review was conducted using the 2009 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. The ScienceDirect, Scopus and Google Scholar databases were used to search the studies conducted between 2012 and 2022. Studies included in this review were searched with some combinations of keywords and saved in Mendeley Desktop for review and referencing. Of 1,745 articles retrieved after removing the duplicates from the databases, 22 met the inclusion criteria.

Out of the total 22 studies reviewed, six were conducted in Asia, six in Europe, four in Africa, three in developing countries and one each in North America, Australia and at global level. Results indicated that impacts of energy poverty on health and education were negative. Efforts should be made to improve the economic conditions of the population in order to allow them access to energy services to achieve higher levels of living.

As this systematic review excludes non-peer-reviewed literature, case studies, reports and theses, and only includes studies published between 2012 and 2022 in English language only, consequently, it may not provide an exhaustive overview of the literature on topic.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic review to investigate the relationship between energy poverty, health and education conducted here. The search methodologies involve systematic searches of databases and other manual searches. Considering the wide inclusion criteria, this review is useful as a general overview of the issues and identifies particular gaps in the existing evidence.

The primary purpose of this study is to reveal how the local food consumption intentions of international tourists are influenced by core variables of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The secondary purpose is to explore the moderating role of responsible tourist behavior in these relationships.

The present research was conducted on international tourists visiting Antalya, Turkey. The research data, collected from a total of 457 respondents, were tested and analyzed via partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Attitudes toward local food and perceived behavioral control have a positive and significant impact on local food consumption intention. Also, responsible tourist behavior has a moderating effect on both the relationship between attitude toward local food and local food consumption intention and the relationship between subjective norms and local food consumption intention.

In their advertising campaigns, destination management organizations (DMOs) and local restaurants should prepare more sentimental advertising content by further focusing on nonrenewable limited resources of the destination and addressing tourists’ role in consuming the limited resources in question. Thus, tourists’ sense of responsibility toward destinations may be increased, possibly stimulating enhancement in their local food consumption intentions.

This study explores the role of responsible tourist behavior in the construct of local food consumption through the lens of TPB. Said construct was included in the local food consumption intention model. This endeavor has paved the way for unraveling the interaction between responsible tourist behavior, attitudes and subjective norms, all of which are fundamental elements of the TPB toward increasing local food consumption intentions. This constitutes a remarkable contribution in understanding the local food consumption behavior of tourists. Moreover, because local food will be consumed in local restaurants located in the destinations, understanding the local food consumption intentions of tourists will enable local restaurants to develop innovative products by focusing on local food.

Staying at home for a prolonged period, the stress during COVID-19 quarantine may affect sleep quality, night eating behaviours of individuals. This paper aims to identify the relationship between night eating behaviour, sleep quality, perceptions of health locus of control in women during the pandemic.

An anonymous, Web based, cross-sectional study was conducted for the duration of a month (April-May, 2020). The study evaluated the nutritional habits of the participants. Anthropometric measurements were noted. Night Eating Syndrome Questionnaire (NESQ), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Multi-dimensional Health Locus of Control-A were used for data collection.

With a mean age of 33 ± 8 years, 529 women participated in the study. The mean NESQ score was 14.4 ± 4.7, PSQI score was 6.4 ± 2.9. Higher night eating scores were observed in participants with chance locus of control (CLC) perception when compared to participants with internal health locus of control (IHLC) perception (p < 0.05). Lower sleep quality was observed in obese participants compared to normal/overweight participants (p < 0.05). It was also found that night eating behaviours significantly predicted sleep quality (R = 0.36, R² = 0.13; p < 0.01), explaining about 13.3% of total variance of sleep quality.

Only internet users and women participated in the study, and the questionnaire form was applied online; the information was obtained in the form of the participants' own statements.

It was found that night eating behaviour significantly predicted sleep quality during the pandemic. It was also determined that the individuals with high chance locus of control perception had higher NES scores than the individuals with high internal locus of control perception.

The night eating behaviours significantly predict sleep quality, individuals with a high perception of CLC had a higher night eating score than individuals with high perception of IHLC during the pandemic.

This study aims to examine the effects of audit committee attributes on corporate philanthropic donations before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study targets Nigeria’s listed firms between 2019 and 2020. We hand-collected the data from the available published annual reports of 141 and 128 firms for 2019 and 2020, respectively. Therefore, the authors used a total of 269 firm-year observations for the study. The authors used ordinary least square regression to analyze the data and Tobit regression to establish the robustness of the results.

The results indicate that the frequency of audit committee meetings has a significant positive relationship with corporate philanthropic donations before and during COVID-19. In the case of audit committee independence, it has only a significant positive relationship with corporate philanthropic donations during the pandemic. However, the findings reveal that audit committee size and foreign directors on the audit committee do not influence corporate philanthropic donations before and during COVID-19.

The study considers audit committee characteristics out of the corporate governance mechanisms that can influence the philanthropic donations of the listed firms in Nigeria over two years from 2019 and 2020.

The findings have practical implications for encouraging the audit committee to support philanthropic donations for the welfare of the poor and the needy, particularly in difficult times like the COVID-19 period. The results could also help regulators and policymakers to provide regulations and policies that can encourage firms to participate actively in philanthropic activities to their best ability.

Motivating firms to provide philanthropic donations for the welfare of underprivileged persons could strongly support the government’s effort to minimize the socioeconomic problems caused by COVID-19.

The study contributes to the scant literature that establishes the impact of audit committee attributes on firm philanthropic donations toward helping the poor and the needy in difficult periods.

The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of two green leafy vegetables (Gongronema latifolium and Celosia argentea) on the hepatic biomarkers [Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT) and Aspartate Aminotransferase (AST)], cardiac biomarkers [Creatine Kinase (CK) and Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH)] and histopathology of the heart of high-fat diet-induced hyperlipidemic rats, with the aim of evaluating the vegetables as functional foods.

Experimental diets consisted of Control Diet (CD), High-Fat Diet (HFD), High-Fat Diet with Blanched Celosia argentea (HCB), High-Fat Diet with Unblanched Celosia argentea (HCU), High-Fat diet with Blanched Gongronema latifolium (HGB) and High-Fat Diet with Unblanched Gongronema latifolium (HGU). Seventy-five albino male rats (weighing 180–200 g) were used. The animals were divided into 15 groups of five albino rats each. Animals in Groups 1, 2 and 3 were fed with CD, HFD only and HFD with Atorvastin (5 mg/kg b.w), respectively. Animals in Groups 4, 5 and 6 were fed with 5, 10 and 15% HCB, respectively. Animals in Groups 7, 8 and 9 were fed with 5, 10 and 15% HCU, respectively, whereas animals in Groups 10, 11 and 12 were fed with 5, 10 and 15% HGB, respectively, and animals in Groups 13, 14 and 15 were fed with 5, 10 and 15% diet-inclusion of HGU, respectively.

The incorporation of the vegetal matter into the diet brought about a significant reduction (p = 0.05) in the activities of ALT, AST, CK and LDH when compared with HFD. However, the histological examination showed no pathological lesion, only at 15% inclusion of the vegetables.

The paper established that the incorporation of Celosia argentea and Gongronema latifolium into diet, most especially at 15% inclusion, may serve as functional food in the management of hyperlipidemia and associated complications.

The purpose of this research is to propose a new choice of nonnegative parameter t in Dai–Liao conjugate gradient method.

Conjugate gradient algorithms are used to solve both constrained monotone and general systems of nonlinear equations. This is made possible by combining the conjugate gradient method with the Newton method approach via acceleration parameter in order to present a derivative-free method.

A conjugate gradient method is presented by proposing a new Dai–Liao nonnegative parameter. Furthermore the proposed method is successfully applied to handle the application in motion control of the two joint planar robotic manipulators.

The proposed algorithm is a new approach that will not either submitted or publish somewhere.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize corporate entrepreneurial strategy using collaborative dynamics of contingency and agency theories, and to demonstrate how some constructs of these two theories are integrated to support long-term strategies of entrepreneurial firms in sustaining their competitive advantages and enhancing their performance.

Review of literature on strategic entrepreneurship, firm growth, contingency and agency theories were explored to support the conceptualized framework of the entrepreneurial strategy developed in this paper. The authors adopt a vignette approach to problematize theoretical gaps identified. The vignette was also used to embody the entrepreneurial strategy matrix developed.

This paper suggests that the effectiveness of corporate entrepreneurial strategies is influenced by the impacts of contingent environment and agency problem of goal conflicts. It provides some propositions for qualitative and empirical research that will extend the rigours of strategic entrepreneurship literature.

This paper highlights the implications of understanding and adopting diverse competitive and sustenance strategies. It provides avenues for entrepreneurial firms to take cognizance and use of the contingency and agency approaches to influence their long-term strategic directions to stay competitive. Institutional authorities will also benefit from having a conceptual reference and guide to further improve their entrepreneurship policies.

The authors took three novel steps to address the existing gap in the literature. First, the theories of entrepreneurship, contingency and agency were bound together and unified as a single framework to conceptualize entrepreneurial strategy. Second, the identified gaps were embodied in a vignette to problematize the theoretical issues and lastly, some testable propositions were put forward to explain different forms of entrepreneurial strategy. The authors also developed a corporate entrepreneurial strategy matrix based on the Covin and Miles (1999) forms of corporate entrepreneurship. It forms the basis for the propositions.