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The paper focuses on the impact of informal economy and Islamic finance development on sustainable development using a panel dataset of 15 Muslim-majority countries from 2016 to 2022. The results based on the feasible GLS and panel quantile regression methods reveal that Islamic finance development has a positive impact on sustainable development. Meanwhile, the informal economy has a negative impact on sustainable development. Assessing the components of Islamic finance development, we further note that only quantitative development/financial performance and knowledge indicators are effective in achieving sustainable development. Besides these key results, GDP per capita, trade openness, and foreign direct investment emerge to be positive factors while the natural resource rents a negative factor in sustainable development. We reason that low productivity and precarious working conditions associated with informal economy may have hindered economic, social, and environmental wellbeing. The positive contribution of the Islamic finance development especially those related to Islamic financial performance and knowledge sharing to sustainable development hints the importance of further development of the Islamic financial sector in these countries.

In order to protect the web against automated attacks, CAPTCHAs are most widely used mechanism on the internet. Numerous types of CAPTCHAs are introduced due to weaknesses in the earlier designs. Animated CAPTCHAs are one of the design alternatives. Instead of presenting the whole information at once, animated CAPTCHAs present information in various frames over the specific interval of time. As CATPCHAs are ubiquitously used to avoid the serious threats from bots therefore it is important to verify their effectiveness. In this research we have verified their robustness against machine learning attacks. It has been proved that adding the extra time dimension does not necessarily ensure protection against automated attacks. We have attacked the Hello CAPTCHA scheme, which is the most popular animated CAPTCHA scheme available on the internet. By applying novel image processing and machine learning techniques, these CAPTCHAs are decoded with high precision. A pre-trained CNN is used to recognize the extracted characters. In this research, 6 popular types of animated CAPTCHAs along with 41 sub types were successfully deciphered with an overall precision of up to 99.5 %.

Objective: To compare the perceptions of participants before and after a one-day workshop on Simulation-based Education. The other objective was to determine the feedback of participants about the one day workshop on Simulation-based Education. Methods: In March 2023, a one-day workshop on Simulation-Based-Education (SBE) was conducted by the Department of Medical Education of Fazaia Ruth Pfau Medical Education in collaboration with the foreign guest faculty through zoom. This workshop was conducted with the participants (faculty members) of the Certificate program. The study adopted quasi experimental (pretest posttest) research design. For data collection we used a validated questionnaire which compromises of three parts. Data was analyzed using SPSS 23. This is a semi-structured questionnaire which consists of four parts. The first part entails the demographic data of the participants. The second structured part collects the perception of participants through 26 statements on 5 points Likert scale (strongly disagree = 1, disagree = 2, agree to some extent = 3, agree = 4, strongly agree = 5). Results: The mean difference in participant perceptions was significant (P<0.05)on 13 statements: Improves communication skills (pretest 3.05±1.050, posttest 4.20±1.056; p=0.004), enhance teamwork (pretest 3.30±0.979, posttest 4.30±0.923; p=0.004), overcomes the challenge of uncooperative patients during real practice (pretest 3.80±0.696, posttest 4.30±0.470; p= 0.008), enact live patients (pretest 2.70±0.923, posttest 3.65±1.040; p=0.004), incopororation into medical education (pretest 3.20±0.894, posttest 4.40±0.503; p=0.000), provide safe, reliastic and conducive learning environment (pretest 2.85±0.875, postest4.00±0.795; p=0.000), provide easy learning (pretest 2.75±0.716, posttest 4.05±0.605 p=0.000), decrease ethical issues with more repeated practice (pretest 2.75±0.716, posttest 3.90±0.788; p=0.000), reduces the effort put in by a faculty in clinical teaching (pretest 2.80±0.696, posttest 3.45±0.999; p=0.039), supplement to clinical practice (pretest 2.75±0.444, posttest 4.55±0.510; p=0.000), evidence required for simulation activities (pretest 2.95±0.605, posttest 4.10±0.641; p=0.000), able to add simulation in clinical subject (pretest 3.15±1.089, posttest 3.80±0.834; p= 0.055), can instruct complex skills without simulation (pretest 2.55±0.887, posttest 3.40±0.883; p=0.018). Conclusions: The study signifiacnaty changed the faculty members’ perceptions of simulation-based education.These encouraging findings may influence their future practice in simulation-based education, allowing them to provide safe, high-quality health care in the workplace and, eventually, enhance patient outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Inhalation therapy with corticosteroids and long-acting β 2 -agonists has been the mainstay of asthma management. However, choosing the correct inhaler technique is essential to effectively deliver the medication to the lungs to attain good asthma control. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate asthma control and device usability with salmeterol/fluticasone fixed-dose combination (FDC) administered through Synchrobreathe ® , a breath-actuated inhaler (BAI), in Indian patients with persistent asthma (EVOLVE study). Design: The present study was a prospective, open-label, non-comparative, multi-center, observational study. Methods: The study enrolled 490 patients with documented diagnoses of asthma who were treatment-naive or uncontrolled due to poor inhaler technique associated with a previous device. The primary endpoint was a change from baseline in the Asthma Control Questionnaire-6 (ACQ-6) score at week 12. Results: Mean ACQ-6 score reduced from 2.2 ± 1.07 (baseline) to 0.4 ± 0.49 (mean change: –1.9 ± 1.12, p

We address the research problem concerning climate mitigation finance (CMF) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Our research question is: Does an increase in CMF reduce GHG? This question generates two goals. First, to verify the predicted negative association using data that measures CMF in USD and GHG in kilotons. Second, to test the robustness of the predicted direction. To achieve our goals, we use a methodology consisting of a graphic analysis of the data over time and a panel data regression model accompanied by robust tests. Our baseline model finds evidence to support our first goal. Robust tests support our second goal by confirming that CMF decreases GHG. Noteworthy, robust tests also show that GHG outperforms the variable used by prior research, which is CO2. Our data, tests, and findings are new and so value-additive in their contributions to the international literature on climate mitigation finance and greenhouse gas emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the study was to examine the job satisfaction level of the teachers of Bahawalpur, in order to achieve the desire end, 340 teachers were taken as sample out of these gender wise distribution was male (195) and female (145). A 32 items questionnaire (Likert scale) was constructed and divided into 9 dimensions namely (nature of work, administrative support, salary, atmosphere, promotion, decision making, and relation with colleagues, job security and over all job satisfaction). Questionnaire was pilot tested and the reliability of the questionnaire was found 0.789 (Cronbach's Alpha). After getting the data, the data was tabulated by using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS XII). Independent sample t-test and ANOVA were run in order to compare the different variables (gender, nature of job, designation, age and experience). The study reveals that female teachers are more satisfied than their male counter parts, permanent teachers are more satisfied than contractual teachers on different dimensions of the job satisfaction scale as well as on over all job satisfaction, designation wise secondary school teachers (SSTs) are more positive than elementary school teachers (ESTs) on atmosphere of the institutions. Age wise the group having the age group of 41-50 years is significantly positive than the age group of 20-30 years on relation with colleagues. Experience wise the group having experience of 16-20 years is more positive than group having experience of 1-5 years on relation with colleagues. The findings of the study lead to several recommendations.

Using the investor-herding index (IHRB) and manager-herding index (MHRB), the emergence of investors' and managers' herding behavior at the corporate-level and its potential impact on firm financial performance (FFP) is analyzed in the entire study. The study utilizes the micro-level data of 296 listed firms of Pakistan stock exchange (PSX) from 2013 to 2017. Empirical findings show that the investors' and managers' herding significantly affect FFP. The results are robust under alternative measurements of FFP. This study has a unique contribution to the literature on behavioral finance by addressing the astonishingly overlooked phenomena of firm-level biases and their potential impact on FFP. For prospective investor's decision, the findings are significant in such way that the market index is irrelevant than the firm-level financial evidence. Explicitly, the study concludes that positive herding behavior is elucidated by the bullish trend and inverse herding behavior of investors with respective to firm value leads toward bearish trend of stock market index. The likelihood of market crash may become more stringent in circumstances once managers and investors interactively exhibit negative herding behavior. Thus, the study offers useful policy and strategy implications for the associated stakeholders to the device the policies accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global environmental concerns have prompted organizations to adopt green human resource management practices that will eventually lead to green innovations. Given that understanding, this study aims to converge multidimensional research published on green human resource management (GHRM) and green innovation. In addition, it seeks to discuss the topic's research trends in the context of what, how, when, where, and by whom. The data were retrieved from the Scopus database (until March 2023), and VOSviewer was used to investigate the research trends. A total of 312 documents were extracted from the Scopus database, and 46 published articles were finalized using the PRISMA flow approach. The results indicate that there has been an upward trend in terms of published articles on the topic, and the highest number of articles (15) were published in the current year, 2023. The co-occurrence results indicate that GHRM is strongly associated with environmental performance and green innovation. The journals Environmental Science and Pollution Research and Sustainability (Switzerland) stand out in this domain. The Abu Dhabi University of United Arab Emirates is the most cited institution, whereas Saudi Arabia has the highest co-authorship at the country level. Furthermore, this study summarizes the major developments in this research domain and suggests research gaps and possible future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While majority of earlier studies have examined service quality, student satisfaction, and university image as determinants of student loyalty, university switching costs have largely been ignored. This study includes university switching costs with perceived service quality (perceived academic quality, perceived administrative quality, and perceived physical facilities), student satisfaction, and perceived university image as determinants of student loyalty. Data was gathered through purposively sampling undergraduate business students from five universities in Karachi. Using exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, a significant impact of student satisfaction, university image, and university switching costs on student loyalty was established. Universities may provide monetary and non-monetary incentives to increase university switching costs and, consequently, help retain students. This study contributes to student loyalty literature by adapting the customer loyalty definition to educational context, examining the role of university switching costs in retaining students, and presenting an empirical model depicting interrelations among determinants of student loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]