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The purpose of the study was to produce a healthier, convenient and traditional ready-to-eat (RTE) snack option with increased nutritional value, using spent hen meat, dietary fibre (DF) and simple technological methods. The product was designed to be stable without refrigeration and be easily adoptable by local self-help groups, rural women and youth and entrepreneurs in urban and semi-urban areas.

Conventional binder used for making snacks, i.e. rice flour was partially replaced by different sources of antioxidant DFs, i.e. oat flour (T₁ – 10%), finger millet flour (T₂ – 5%) and amaranth flour (T₃ –15%) to prepare spent hen snack sticks (SHSS). The snacks were then packaged in low density polyethylene (LDPE) pouches and evaluated for their storage stability at ambient temperature for a period of 35 days. Their physico-chemical, sensory and microbiological quality was evaluated at a regular interval of 7 days. The proximate composition of developed SHSS was compared to commercially available snack products (chakli/murukku – snacks without meat).

The fibre-enriched SHSS showed significant improvement in nutritive value, as they contained more fibre (p = 0.001) and protein (p = 0.029) than control SHSS. When compared to commercially available snack product SHSS showed three-fold significant increase in protein (p = 0.000) and ash content (p = 0.001) and only 11%–12% total fat as compared to 31% fat in the market-available product. The most acceptable treatment in terms of overall sensory quality and nutritional aspects was T₃; however, T₂ was more shelf-stable during the storage period. The study showed that fibre-enriched snacks can be stored at ambient temperature for up to 35 days without substantial loss in physico-chemical, sensory and microbial quality. Hence, substituting rice flour with DFs can lead to the development of products with better sensory attributes and improved functionality.

The simplicity of the product in terms of composition, machinery and low production costs makes it an easily adoptable one by small-scale entrepreneurs, especially those belonging to semi-urban areas.

Incorporation of spent hen meat, a relatively cheap but abundant source of protein, in RTE products can serve as an effective way to alleviate protein malnutrition, whereas addition of fibre further improves the functionality of the product. The methodology can be easily taken up by small-scale entrepreneurs and create a market for snack-based functional meat products.

Agricultural waste and food sources are some of the pollutants of the environment. One of these wastes is the peel of fruits that cannot be consumed as food. In this regard, walnut husk (WH) and oleaster peel (PO) are known as two important sources of tannin and are bulky wastes. Because of the high percentage of tannin, these materials can be used as a natural source for the preparation of bio-mordant in the dyeing process.

In this study, Reseda and Madder were used as natural dyes in the presence of a mixture of two bio-mordants. WH and PO were selected as bio-mordant. All natural resources are extracted to obtain the juice. The phenolic percentage of tannin-containing extracts was evaluated and then it was used for wool yarns by premordanting method. The results of evaluating the fastness properties using the ISO method.

The most important achievement of this research is the use of agricultural waste in the dyeing process to reduce environmental pollution and create added value. All compounds rich in tannin have some phenolic components, therefore the amount of phenolic content of these extracts was evaluated. The effect of mixing the mordant on the color characteristics of the yarns was investigated and the results showed that changing the ratio of the combination of two mordant is effective on the K/S values. The results of evaluating the fastness properties using the ISO method showed that the washing, rubbing and light fastness in the presence of mordant is good, good and moderate, respectively.

In this paper, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, the combination of two natural extracts obtained from agricultural waste has been used to create a new bio-mordant on fibers and improve stability.

This paper documents a robust empirical regularity: higher trade openness is associated with a lower unemployment rate. This paper also examines whether or not the effects of trade liberalisation depend on countries' income levels. Further, the dynamic causation between trade openness and unemployment is also examined.

In order to obtain insight into the openness–unemployment nexus, following empirical methods were utilised - static panel models, dynamic panel models and a novel panel Granger causality approach proposed by Juodis et al. (2021).

Results suggest that openness negatively affects unemployment; the extent to which trade liberalisation affects unemployment depends on the income level of each country. The Juodis, Karavias, and Sarafidis (JKS) test confirmed that the past values of trade openness, inflation, foreign direct investment and gross domestic product per capita contain information that helps to predict unemployment in a more robust manner. To simply put, opening upto trade may eventually become a requirement for creating more job opportunities, but this alone may not be enough. The extent to which nations benefit from trade liberalisation is largely dependent on the overall economic conditions and their capability to move up the income scale.

A major difference between this study and those performed previously is that this study does not only examine the impact of trade openness on unemployment, but also investigates whether the unemployment effect of liberalisation is affected by countries' income levels – an issue that has received little attention in the past. Additionally, the unique panel non-causality approach put forth by Juodis et al. (2021) is used in the first instance to look into the causal link between trade openness and unemployment. This method has advantages in that the method enables capturing Granger-causality in homogeneous or heterogeneous panels amongst multiple variables.

Quadrotors have been applied in various fields. However, because the quadrotor is subject to multiple disturbances, consisting of external disturbances, actuator faults and parameter uncertainties, it is difficult to control the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to achieve high-precision tracking performance. This paper aims to design a safety controller that uses observer and neural network method to improve the tracking performance of UAV under multiple disturbances. The experiments prove that this method is effective.

First, to actively estimate and compensate the synthetic uncertainties of the system, a finite-time extended state observer is investigated, and the disturbances are transformed into the extended state of the system for estimation. Second, an adaptive neural network controller that does not accurately require the dynamic model knowledge is designed based on the estimated value, where the weights of the neural network can be dynamically adjusted by the adaptive law. Furthermore, the finite-time bounded convergence of the proposed observer and the stability of the system are proved through homogeneous theory and Lyapunov method.

The figure-“8” climbing flight simulation and real flight experiments illustrate that the proposed safety control strategy has good tracking performance.

This paper proposes the safety control structure of the UAV, which combines the extended state observer with the neural network method. Numerical simulation results and actual flight experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.

The sharing economy is changing the way people use products and services, and the success of sharing-based apps like bicycle and automobile sharing has drawn a lot of interest across the world. The purpose of this research is to investigate the factors affecting the consumer's adoption of ride-sharing services.

With this aim, the current study integrates the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Expectancy Confirmation Model (ECM) with a further extension of consumer trust and social norms. Using a survey-based research design, data were collected from 558 respondents using multi-stage convenience sampling on 5 point Likert scale. Confirmatory factor analysis is conducted followed by structural equation modelling using IBM AMOS-22.

The findings of the study report crucial determinants for the consumer's continuance intention and actual use of these services. Perceived usefulness, consumer satisfaction, trust and subjective norms were found positively associated with the continuous intention to use ride-sharing services, whereas perceived ease of use was found to be insignificant. This study also highlights antecedents for the consumer's trust towards these services and found reputation, propensity to trust as a significant contributor whereas structural assurance was found insignificant to establish the trust among the users.

The research on consumer adoption towards ride-sharing services are meagre and this study adds the value to the field by integrating TAM and ECM model with further extension of consumer trust and social norms and empirically test the proposed model.

This study aims to discuss the numerical solutions of weakly singular Volterra and Fredholm integral equations, which are used to model the problems like heat conduction in engineering and the electrostatic potential theory, using the modified Lagrange polynomial interpolation technique combined with the biconjugate gradient stabilized method (BiCGSTAB). The framework for the existence of the unique solutions of the integral equations is provided in the context of the Banach contraction principle and Bielecki norm.

The authors have applied the modified Lagrange polynomial method to approximate the numerical solutions of the second kind of weakly singular Volterra and Fredholm integral equations.

Approaching the interpolation of the unknown function using the aforementioned method generates an algebraic system of equations that is solved by an appropriate classical technique. Furthermore, some theorems concerning the convergence of the method and error estimation are proved. Some numerical examples are provided which attest to the application, effectiveness and reliability of the method. Compared to the Fredholm integral equations of weakly singular type, the current technique works better for the Volterra integral equations of weakly singular type. Furthermore, illustrative examples and comparisons are provided to show the approach’s validity and practicality, which demonstrates that the present method works well in contrast to the referenced method. The computations were performed by MATLAB software.

The convergence of these methods is dependent on the smoothness of the solution, it is challenging to find the solution and approximate it computationally in various applications modelled by integral equations of non-smooth kernels. Traditional analytical techniques, such as projection methods, do not work well in these cases since the produced linear system is unconditioned and hard to address. Also, proving the convergence and estimating error might be difficult. They are frequently also expensive to implement.

There is a great need for fast, user-friendly numerical techniques for these types of equations. In addition, polynomials are the most frequently used mathematical tools because of their ease of expression, quick computation on modern computers and simple to define. As a result, they made substantial contributions for many years to the theories and analysis like approximation and numerical, respectively.

This work presents a useful method for handling weakly singular integral equations without involving any process of change of variables to eliminate the singularity of the solution.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the authors claim the originality and effectiveness of their work, highlighting its successful application in addressing weakly singular Volterra and Fredholm integral equations for the first time. Importantly, the approach acknowledges and preserves the possible singularity of the solution, a novel aspect yet to be explored by researchers in the field.

This paper aims mainly at introducing applied statisticians and econometricians to the current research methodology with non-Euclidean data sets. Specifically, it provides the basis and rationale for statistics in Wasserstein space, where the metric on probability measures is taken as a Wasserstein metric arising from optimal transport theory.

The authors spell out the basis and rationale for using Wasserstein metrics on the data space of (random) probability measures.

In elaborating the new statistical analysis of non-Euclidean data sets, the paper illustrates the generalization of traditional aspects of statistical inference following Frechet's program.

Besides the elaboration of research methodology for a new data analysis, the paper discusses the applications of Wasserstein metrics to the robustness of financial risk measures.

This study examined the factors influencing willingness-to-repurchase for each class of airline service, and integrate the constructs of service quality, satisfaction and willingness-to-repurchase which were rooted on Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB) model. The study focuses on the domestic and international arrival of passengers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja. Information was gathered from domestic and foreign passengers who had post-purchase experience and had used the airline's services more than once. The survey data were obtained concurrently from arrival passengers at two major international airports using an electronic questionnaire through random and purposive sampling techniques. The data was analysed using the ordinal logit model and structural equation model. From the 606 respondents, 524 responses were received but 489 responses were valid for data analysis and reporting and were obtained mostly from economy and business class passengers. The study found that the quality of seat pitch, allowance of 30 kg luggage permission, availability of online check-in 24 hours before the departing flight, quality of space for legroom between seats, and the quality of seats that can be converted into a fully flatbed are the major service factors influencing willingness-to-repurchase economy and business class tickets. Also, it was found that passengers' willingness to repurchase is influenced majorly by service quality, but not necessarily influenced by satisfaction. These results reflect the passengers' consciousness of COVID-19 because the study was conducted during the heat of COVID-19 pandemic. Recommendations were suggested for airline management based on each class.

Purpose: This study aims to evaluate, explore, and characterise the perceptions of the Indian private sector employers on the 21st century 4Cs (critical thinking, communication, creativity, and collaboration) skills gap, which affects their productivity.

Need for Study: This research aims to shed light on the significant issue of the soft skills gap, precisely the 4Cs skills in India. Soft skills, including the 4Cs, are complex and crucial for organisations, and the shortage of these skills among the workforce is a growing concern. This research addresses enterprises’ challenges in bridging this gap by exploring different ways to utilise these skills.

Methodology: Fifty-six respondents were interviewed based on cluster sampling. An invitation was sent to 40 private sector organisations from five different industries. Only 15 organisations agreed to participate in the interview process.

Findings: A total of seven were generated from the data, which included: (1) explicit and timely feedback; (2) compassion and understanding; (3) motivation deficiency; (4) lack of collaboration synergies; (5) lack of practical knowledge; (6) interpersonal skills; and (7) creating team culture.

Implication: Given the prevalent skills gap, it is challenging for Indian industries and organisations to remain competitive in the global market. Investing in the education system, providing students with the necessary academic and vocational skills, and equipping them with soft skills, such as the 21st century 4Cs skills is essential to address this issue. Investment is necessary to prepare the workforce to meet the demands of emerging businesses and technologies, ensuring that industries and organisations remain competitive.

This study aims to examine the impact of boardroom diversity on the financial stability of Chinese financial listed firms. Boardroom diversity is quantified in the following aspects: relation-oriented diversity and task-oriented diversity.

Panel data on Chinese financial listed firms between 1998 and 2017 are used in this study. Panel regression is used to analyze the firm data for fixed effects and robust standard errors.

Task-oriented diversity of the board increases financial stability. Regarding the impact of boardroom diversity on firm risk, the results reveal that task-oriented diversity of the board reduces firm risk, which supports the predictions of this research. Regarding the moderating effect of state ownership on the relationship between boardroom diversity (task- and relation-oriented diversity) and financial stability, the results show that state ownership enhances the positive impact of the board’s task-oriented diversity on financial stability.

Task-oriented diversity of the board enhances the financial stability of Chinese financial listed firms. As existing studies on bank boards in China are limited, the findings of this research can be used when crafting policy initiatives to enhance financial stability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the effect of boardroom diversity, particularly task- and relation-oriented diversity, on financial stability. It provides empirical support that boardroom diversity positively affects the financial stability of Chinese financial listed firms. This research also offers empirical evidence that state ownership enhances the positive impact of the board’s task-oriented diversity on financial stability.