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This study aims to understand the impact of organizational contingencies such as organizational culture, human resource policies and inter-organizational linkage on financial performance, using the mediating role of crisis management in energy companies in Iraq. To this end, structural equation modelling (SEM) was adopted to test the causal relationships between the study variables. An exploratory design (i.e., a questionnaire) was used to collect data from 379 workers in energy companies in Iraq. The results of this study indicate that organizational contingencies affect financial performance. Besides, crisis management provides complete mediation of the relationship between organizational contingencies and financial performance. From the practitioner's point of view, leaders and practitioners should encourage a creative culture and idea generation to give members enough power to act and focus on goals that support building sustainable organizational capacity. Implications for Central European audience: The findings of this study contribute to providing academics and practitioners with a deep insight into the antecedents of financial performance to develop practices and policies that increase performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our daily lives now involve e-commerce, and because of how convenient it is to use them, e-commerce apps are becoming more and more common. Accessibility and convenience do, however, come with concerns about personal data leakage. The term “personal data leakage” refers to the unlawful sharing of personal information that can be utilized for negative purposes like fraud or identity theft. This paper is aimed at investigating the awareness of personal data leakage among users of e-commerce apps. Using convenience sampling methods to collect data. A survey was conducted with 566 respondents who used e-commerce apps at least once. The aim of the study was to determine how well respondents understood the elements that influence the security of online transactions in e-commerce. The study’s findings indicated that most participants are aware of the dangers of disclosing personal information online. Moreover, users of e-commerce applications should pay more attention to privacy concerns and safe online transactions in order to increase user privacy concerns and the application’s ability to conduct secure transactions. The results of this study point to the necessity for e-commerce app developers to play a more active role in informing their users of the value of data privacy and the precautions they may take to safeguard their personal data.

Cognizant of the growing importance of internal control as a corporate governance mechanism in organizations, this paper investigates factors that are associated with internal audit effectiveness. Additionally, this paper also investigates the relationship between internal audit effectiveness and internal audit quality. A total of 102 questionnaires were collected from internal auditors and chief audit executives of 12 multinational companies in Malaysia. The data was analyzed through structural equation modeling by using SmartPLS Software 3.0. The findings reveal that management support, interdepartmental coordination and the support and acceptance of auditees were associated with internal audit effectiveness. Conversely, the findings also revealed that independence, objectivity and competence (the three building blocks of internal audit effectiveness) were also related to internal audit quality. The study contributes to the agency theory by highlighting the factors associated with the effectiveness of internal audits and quality audit outcomes to protect the best interest of principals while fulfilling the corporate governance imperative. This study also contributed to the institutional theory by highlighting how proper structures and systems can lead to a culture of governance and internal controls. The study confirmed the significance of interdepartmental coordination and the support and acceptance of auditees towards internal audit effectiveness, the exploration of which remains limited in current literature.

Background: Stress related to nursing education and clinical placement encounters by students since the beginning of their nursing course has been an issue of concern. This study aims to examine the prevalence of adult personality traits and their relationship with stress levels, coping mechanisms and academic performance among nursing students., Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 92 nursing students at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). The Big Five Inventory (BFI), Student Nurse Stress Index and Brief COPE instruments were used to measure the respondents' personality traits, stress level and coping mechanisms, respectively. Data were analysed using IBM SPSS version 26., Results: The most prevalent personality trait of the students was openness (mean = 33.58). Conscientiousness ( r = -0.226, P = 0.030) and neuroticism ( r = 0.326, P = 0.002) are significantly related to stress level. Extraversion ( r = 0.219, P = 0.036), conscientiousness ( r = 0.206, P = 0.049) and openness ( r = 0.219, P = 0.036) show significant relationships with the approach coping mechanism, while agreeableness ( r = -0.257, P = 0.013) and neuroticism ( r = 0.297, P = 0.004) show significant relationships with the avoidant coping mechanism. However, no significant relationship was noted between personality traits and academic performance ( r = 1.000, P > 0.05)., Conclusion: Knowledge of ones' personality traits may benefit students in understanding themselves and in using the best ways to cope with their stress while studying nursing., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest None., (© Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2022.)

To ensure safe drinking water, it is necessary to have a simple method by which the probable pollutants are detected at the point of distribution. Nitrite contamination in water near agricultural locations could be an environmental concern due to its deleterious effects on the human population. The development of a frugal paper-based microfluidic sensor could be desirable to achieve the societal objective of providing safe drinking water. This work describes the development of a facile and cost-effective microfluidic paper-based sensor for quantitative estimation of nitrite in aquatic environments. A simple punching machine was used for fabrication and rapid prototyping of paper-based sensors without the need of any specialized equipment or patterning techniques. A reusable 3D printed platform served as the support for simultaneous testing of multiple samples. The nitrite estimation was carried out with smartphone-assisted digital image acquisition and colorimetric analysis. Under optimized experimental conditions, the variation in average grayscale intensity with concentration of nitrite was linear in the range from 0.1 to 10 ppm. The limits of detection and quantitation were 0.12 ppm and 0.35 ppm respectively. The reproducibility, expressed as relative standard deviation was 1.31%. The selectivity of nitrite detection method was determined by performing interference studies with commonly existing co-ions in water, such as bicarbonates, chloride and sulphate. The paper-based sensor was successfully applied for estimation of nitrite in actual water samples and showed high recoveries in the range of 83.5-109%. The results were in good agreement with those obtained using spectrophotometry. The developed paper-based sensor method, by virtue of its simplicity, ease of fabrication and use, could be readily extended for detection of multiple analytes in resource-limited settings., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Regardless of the prevalence and value of change initiatives in contemporary organizations, these often face resistance by employees. This resistance is the outcome of change recipients' cognitive and behavioral reactions towards change. To better understand the causes and effects of reactions to change, a holistic view of prior research is needed. Accordingly, we provide a systematic literature review on this topic. We categorize extant research into four major and several subcategories: micro and macro reactions. We analyze the essential characteristics of the emerging field of change reactions along research issues and challenges, benefits of (even negative) reactions, managerial implications, and propose future research opportunities., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestAll the authors of this paper declare existence of no mutual conflict of interests., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022.)

This study examined behavioural intention to dispose of unused medicines using a comprehensive model integrating the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), with knowledge as a driver of personal norms; attitudes, personal norms, and perceived busyness as additional drivers of behavioural intention; and perceived convenience as a moderator. The model was tested with data collected from 204 respondents using the partial least squares technique. Knowledge about the proper disposal of unused medicines was recognized as a strong predictor of personal norms and attitudes towards proper disposal of waste medications. The results showed that attitudes, personal norms, perceived busyness, and perceived behavioural control have significant effects on intention to dispose of unused medicines. Furthermore, perceived convenience moderates the impacts of attitude, personal norms, and perceived behavioural control on intention to dispose of unused medicines. The extended TPB explained 55.7% of the variance of intention to dispose of unused medicines properly. Our results indicate the importance of integrating additional variables into the TPB to enhance its explanatory power in predicting behavioural intention. The results suggest to governments that in order to implement planned programs for proper collection and destruction of waste medication, a plan is needed to enhance public knowledge on the impacts of improper medication waste disposal on the environment, and also that collection points should become accessible for anyone.

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is a perceptual phenomenon in which participants experience ownership over a fake model hand through synchronous visuotactile stimulation. Several studies have shown that the illusion occurs only when both hands are in close proximity to each other. In the present study, we systematically examined the role of relative position (lateral, distal) and distance (13-75 cm) of the model hand (with respect to participants' real hand) on illusion experience across both lateral and distal positions. Furthermore, we also compared different facets of the subjective illusion experience; the experience of the model hand being part of one's body (i.e., ownership) and the perceptual fusion of vision and touch (i.e., referral of touch). In two experiments we observed indications for a stronger illusion experiences in distal compared to lateral positions of identical distances, indicating that the illusory effects may vary as a function of the relative position of the hand. Our results also showed that manipulations of distance differently modulated both facets of the illusion. While ownership was restricted to near distances, referral of touch sensations remained stable at farther distances. These results are interpreted in relation to variations in sensory weighting across different planes.

In this paper, we have demonstrated the usage of a novel micro-mechanical device (MMD) to perform quantitative in situ tensile tests on individual metallic nanowires inside a transmission electron microscope (TEM). Our preliminary experiment on a 360 nm diameter nickel nanowire showed that the sample fractured at an engineering stress of ∼ 1.2 GPa and an engineering strain of ∼ 4%, which is consistent with earlier experiments performed inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM). With in situ high resolution TEM imaging and diffraction capabilities, this novel experimental set-up could provide unique opportunities to reveal the underlying deformation and damage mechanisms for metals at the nanoscale.

We report on the usage of a simple microfabricated device that works in conjunction with a quantitative Nanoindenter within a scanning electron microscope (SEM) chamber, for the in situ quantitative tensile testing of individual catalytically grown pristine and nitrogen-doped multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWNTs). The two types of MWNTs were found to possess similar strengths but different load-bearing abilities owing to the differences in their wall structures. Also, stress versus strain curves and fracture surfaces showed that while the pristine MWNTs deform and fail in a brittle fashion, the nitrogen-doped MWNTs deform plastically to varying degrees prior to failure. High resolution transmission electron microscope (TEM) images of the nitrogen-doped MWNT fracture specimens showed the presence of regions of reduced cross-section areas and kinks in close proximity to the fracture surfaces. The presence of nitrogen atoms in the graphitic sheets was assumed to have led to the formation of kinks whose motion induced by straining could have resulted in the plastic deformation of the carbon nanotubes.