Many real-world problems in manufacturing system, for instance, the scheduling problems, are formulated by defining several objectives for problem solving and decision making. Recently, research on dispatching rules allocation has attracted substantial attention. Although many dispatching rules methods have been developed, multi-objective scheduling problems remain inherently difficult to solve by any single rule. In this paper, a hybrid genetic-based gravitational search algorithm (GSA) in weighted dispatching rule is proposed to tackle a scheduling problem by achieving both time and job-related objectives. Genetic algorithm (GA) is used to select two appropriate dispatching rules to combine as a weighted multi-attribute function, while the GSA is used to optimize the contribution weightage of each rule in each stage of the flow shop. The results show that the proposed algorithm is significantly better than the traditional dispatching rules and the rules allocation algorithm. The proposed algorithm not only improved the quality of the schedule in multi-objective problems but also maintained the advantages of traditional dispatching rules in terms of ease of implementation.

As the most contributed sectors in agriculture, rice farming is facing various risks, namely uncertainty such as crop failure caused by climate change, including air temperature, weather, rainfall and others. Indonesia is categorised as an agricultural country with a tropical climate. By this season, the farmers can plant the rice. Rice farming is currently an inseparable part of most agricultural societies in Indonesia, especially in West Java. However, changes in air temperature, weather and annual rainfall, can increase the uncertainty and upward the risk of crop failure. Thus, the current study seeks to investigate the decision making for agricultural risk assessment (climate variable) through the formulation of a risk model for agricultural insurance in Indonesia. This study utilised the climate variables, which consist of air temperature, wind speed, maximum and minimum temperatures, and rainfall. For determining the magnitude of risk, we applied the Block Maxima method and Peak Over Threshold. The results of this study found that the highest risk of losses occurred in November, December, January, February and March with a value of 0.17485.

The development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) becomes the benchmark and leading position for developing countries’ economies. The digital transformation demands strategies, desires, and awareness of Information Technology (IT)-based market players and investments. Despite the transformation of a digital business platform, many SMEs have stumbled in the middle road. Therefore, this study aimed to determine priority indicators in assessing SMEs’ readiness towards digitalization and evolving a readiness model for SMEs based on the Decision Support System (DSS) approach. Multiple stakeholders’ viewpoints, particularly regarding academicians, governments, investors, market places, and SMEs’ business actors as targeted respondents, were scrutinized quantitatively and qualitatively to verify the proposed factors. The priority weights of factors have been examined from economic and IT perspectives and derived through deploying the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (F-AHP) method. This study reveals the rank of measures necessary to assess the readiness of the digital revolution of SMEs. Transaction preparedness in SMEs’ cultural, educational, financial, and technological infrastructure views grows into the principal components during this assessment with 0.30 of vector value, accompanied by marketing and micro-environment at 0.24, management at 0.20, macro-environment at 0.03 and business activities at 0.02, respectively. For the recommendation purposes, the rubric segmented SME fitness into three levels, low, middle, and high performance. The prototype system DSS-SMEsReadiness was then evolved in order to simplify the adoption of the DSS method in the SME performance measurement model. The software analysis demonstrates that this application would assist decision-makers to ascertain SMEs’ readiness to digitalize. The future recommendation provides SMEs and stakeholders with knowledge transfers and acclimatization for taking the appropriate option about their business strategy, management resources, skills, and assistance programs for SMEs. This model attempts to reduce SME digitalization disruptions and achieve a digital business’s growth and sustainability in a nutshell.

University educational system plays an important role for the development of any country. Most industries normally rely on highly educated people with different skills and the universities are also responsible for training leading edge technology skills. During the past few years, there have been tremendous efforts to empower Vietnamese universities and to put more efforts to increase their ranking internationally. The purpose of this study is to determine the appropriate leadership style on higher education institutions and the role of the leader in promoting academic research at Vietnamese universities. Excellent and effective leadership is needed to develop employees as a sustainable competitive advantage. The leaders of organizations normally have difficulty in speeding up the performance of their followers. Individual performance is studied and evaluated in both scholarly and practical literature. Employee engagement is not only a moderator concept established in organizational theory, but it also offers a variety of views and theories. This paper designs a questionnaire and distributes it among 232 students to measure the effect of transformational leadership in higher educational organizations. Regression analysis is used to measure the effects of different components of transformational leadership on the performance of organizations. The survey results indicate that the Transformational leadership could actually be effective when they are allowed autonomy in organizations, especially on the budget. In summary, the results of the investigation clarify the role and importance of transformational leadership in organizations.

Banks in Jordan are facing a crisis related to their employees, where it has recently become clear that employees are leaving their jobs in increasing numbers. Thus, this study examined the impact of the human resources management (HRM) practices (compensation, performance appraisal, promotion, and training & development) on employee’s turnover intention and the mediating role of career satisfaction. The survey questionnaire was gathered from 394 employees located in 25 banks in Jordan. The study used PLS-SEM to get the results and examine the hypotheses. The findings indicate that HRM practices (compensation, performance appraisal, promotion, and training & development) negatively impact employees’ turnover intention, and career satisfaction partially mediated the relationship between HRM practices (compensation, performance appraisal, promotion, and training & development) and employee’s turnover intention. The study recommends that banks in Jordan provide a high compensation, fair performance appraisal, fast promotion systems, sufficient training & development program and high level of career satisfaction to maintain the human element and reduce the employees’ turnover intention. Future studies may include other practices such as employee empowerment, teamwork, employment security information sharing, and job description.

The aim of this study is to investigate the mediating mechanism of customer satisfaction (CS) on customer relationship management (CRM) and customer loyalty (CL) among Nigerian consolidated banks. This paper used a survey research design, and the study unit of analysis consists of selected customers among Nigerian consolidated banks. This study used a purposive sampling technique whereby structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 750 customers of the 5 focused banks in Kano State, Nigeria. Partial least square–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to evaluate the study hypotheses. The outcome of the study revealed that CRM has a significant effect on CL while CS partially mediates CRM and CL relationship. This paper provides substantial results to practitioners to realize the role of developing a CRM strategy in the Nigerian banking industry. In line with that, the management of the banks should build sound CRM components such as process fit, customer information quality and information system support to deliver sound services in order to operate and compete in the banking ecosystem effectively. This paper has made a substantial contribution to the body of knowledge in the CS, CL, and CRM literature by operationalizing it within the Nigerian banking industry.

A value chain plays a crucial role in increasing production efficiency due to business uncertainty and high competition between business entities. Of these, the business must carry out the activities effectively and efficiently to achieve maximum profit. However, the study that focuses on the moderating role of the value chain in its relationship to firm performance is still limited. Thus, the present study aims to examine the effect of intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty toward firm performance and the mediating role of the value chain in the relationship between intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty to firm performance. This study was designed using a quantitative approach through an online survey. A total of 207 staff from non-financial state-owned enterprises consists of 10 clusters and 76 companies. The data were analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling with Partial Least Square method (SEM-PLS) and assisted by statistical software, namely SmartPLS 3.3.3. The result indicated that intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty have a significant effect on firm performance. Also, this study found that a value chain moderates the relationship of intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty toward firm performance. In conclusion, this study has successfully examined the effect of intellectual capital and environmental uncertainty on firm performance—also, the role of a value chain in the relationship of studied variables. In addition, the findings of this study showed that a value chain is an important tool for companies to improve their business performance.

Based on paralyzed and death time, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) were preliminarily investigated for possible biological effectiveness of anthelmintic activity on Pheretima Posthuma. After synthesizing ZnO NPs by low-temperature precipitation method with slight modification, size, morphology, and shape evaluation of these nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and annealing temperature in the range 400-700C. In this anthelmintic assay, the paralyzed time (PT) was gradually shorter with the increase of the sample concentration, for instance, when high concentration (40mg/ml) sample was applied on adult worms the paralyzed time was 35.6 minutes only. The death time (DT) was 450 and 80 minutes when the sample concentration was 20 and 40 mg/ml respectively. These results were compared with albendazole as a reference showed PT and DT 378.6 and 402.3 minutes respectively, and showed maximum dose-dependent anthelmintic activity. Finally, at higher concentration paralytic effect (PE) was showed much earlier and subsequently, it is important to note that the time taken for death observation was shorter.

Demand for eco-friendly materials increases each year due to their excellent properties, which has proved to contribute to developing a sustainable environment. One of the promising raw materials in producing Glass is rice husk, a waste product from paddy harvesting, containing about 90% of silica. Rice husks are usually burnt in an open area and contribute to severe air pollution problems. In this research, Soda-Lime-Silica Rice Husk Ash (SLRHA) glass which is a new combination of soda-lime silicate (SLS) glass and rice husk ash (RHA), was developed for building glass and window application. The hardness properties of the developed SLS-RHA glass system are presented in this paper. These glasses were investigated to determine the effect of RHA addition on the physical properties of SLS glass. The experimental works using RSM have successfully identified the significant factors and optimized the responses. Based on the Rockwell hardness test, the outcomes demonstrated that the glass sample contained 29.84% weight SLS and 0.06% weight RHA. The result indicated that crack propagation was increased with the increasing addition of RHA, which causes an increase in cracks and voids due to the creation of more debonding.

Stainless steel (SS) and Titanium alloy (Ti) are the most commonly used materials in many industrial fields such as the automotive and aerospace industry. Stainless steel has good corrosion resistance and titanium alloy has an extremely lightweight characteristic. The combination of both materials has become a tremendous innovation in the industrial sector. Resistance spot welding which has commonly applied in many industrial fields is a good consideration to join these two dissimilar materials due to the high efficiency that could be achieved by using this method. However, the way of joining these dissimilar materials should be carefully considered due to the significant difference in mechanical properties between SS and Ti. In the present study, 3 mm of SS316L and Ti6Al4V sheets were joint under the resistance spot welding method with an aluminum interlayer. The optimized welding parameters were provided under the Taguchi method L9 orthogonal array along with the mechanical properties’ investigation. The optimum welding parameters were 11 kA of weld current, 30 Cycles of welding time, and 5 kN of electrode force which produced 8.83 kN tensile-shear load of the joint. The mechanical structure analysis shows the different morphology between stainless steel and titanium interfaces and the intermetallic compound layer was formed on the SS/Al and Al/Ti interfaces. The EDX analysis shows the atomic diffusion-reaction on the application of aluminum as an interlayer on the SS/Ti joint.