Asymmetric and time-frequency co-movements among innovation-themed investments and carbon emission efficiency: Thematic investing and hedging opportunities.

This study is aimed at investigating the asymmetric and time-frequency co-movements and the hedge or safe-haven properties of carbon efficient indices, the MSCI ACWI Sustainable Impact, and MSCI World EGS indices, in relation to technology and innovation-themed investments. In doing so, the ADCC-GJR-GARCH and wavelet coherence techniques are applied to a daily return series ranging from January 2019 to January 2023. Findings of the ADCC-GJR-GARCH model show negative and insignificant asymmetric linkage among underlying indices during the sample period. The S&P 500 carbon efficient index (CEI) acts as a strong hedge or safe-haven for technology and innovation-themed indices during tranquil and tumultuous periods. The MSCI ACWI Sustainable Impact, MSCI World EGS, and carbon efficient indices except for S&P 500 CEI exhibit weak hedge or safe-haven attributes. Wavelet coherence reveals negative (positive) co-movements between the thematic and carbon efficient indices in short-term (medium-term and long-term) horizons with consistent leading behavior of thematic indices to carbon efficient indices outcomes. It justifies the presence of short-lived hedging or safe-haven characteristics in the thematic domain for investors. These strong and weak hedge or safe-haven characteristics of low carbon and sustainability indices reveal that adding low carbon efficient and sustainable investments to a portfolio result in considerable diversification benefits for investors who tend to take minimal risk in both tranquil and tumultuous periods. The current findings imply that financial institutions, thematic investing companies, and governments need to encourage carbon efficient technology transfer and innovation-themed investments by increasing the fund allocations in underlying asset classes. Policy-making and regulatory bodies can encourage investors to make carbon-efficient and thematic investments and companies to issue carbon-efficient stocks or investments to safeguard social and economic risks during fragile periods. These investments can offer greater opportunities to combat the intensity of economic shocks on portfolios for responsible or sustainable investors.

Carrot and Stick Approach: The Exploitative Leadership and Absenteeism in Education Sector.

Utilizing the conservation of resources theory, this study investigates serial mediation of facades of conformity and depression between exploitative leadership and absenteeism. A total of 211 education sector employees using the convenient sampling technique took part in the survey with data collected in a time-lagged research design. Findings of the study reveal that facades of conformity and depression mediate the independent paths and play a serial mediating role between EL and absenteeism path. This study suggests that EL works as a workplace stressor, under which employees try to protect their valuable resources from further loss in the form of facades of conformity, in doing so, it leads to depression; thus, employees ultimately use absenteeism as an active coping strategy to cope with workplace stressors.

Service innovation in small neighborhood family firms: An advanced approach to enhance employee's performance through social and psychological rewards.

This research study focuses on the employee's job performance of private small firms during the post COVID-19 situation. After the COVID these small family firms try to regain their business, but their efforts are not that much successful. This situation creates a financial crisis in these firms, and they are unable to provide sufficient monetary rewards to their employees. This situation creates unrest among the employees of these small firms. To manage this issue, social rewards and psychological rewards played their role. The study uses a causal research design with a correlational study design in a non-contrived environment. Minimal researcher interference has been assured. AMOS 24 has dealt with the mediation in study design with bootstrap methodology. The study was conducted on 250 employees of different private small family firms across Punjab province using a proportionate stratified sampling technique. A study's finding suggests that top management enhances employee performance in their organizations by introducing the organization's psychological rewards. In contrast, introducing social rewards does not significantly impact employee performance while considering satisfaction and motivation as a mediating variable.

Innovation in Neighborhood Management Web Service: A Precise Initiative to Augment Audiences' Interaction on Social Media.

In this article, two significant elements in social media websites, system operation, and social technology are examined in connection to website visitors' online loyalty and interaction, namely, commitment and satisfaction, in neighborhood management through social media websites. A total of 287 social media users completed a systematic questionnaire. After confirmatory factor analysis, data were examined in AMOS 24 using structural equation modeling with bootstrap. The research showed that both variables indirectly influence website visitors' online loyalty and interaction via trust and satisfaction, but not directly. Online relationship quality characteristics impact the interaction pattern of social media users after changes in services applied by the respective organizations on their websites. As for managers, the research gives crucial data on user behavior in connection to new services launched by organizations on their websites and shows how value creation to the target audience may help them reduce costs and optimize revenues.

The Nexus Between Vegetation, Urban Air Quality, and Public Health: An Empirical Study of Lahore.

Global climate change and the deteriorating quality of urban air are the major issues affecting the atmospheric ecosystem of Pakistan. To avoid poor monitoring and management of air pollution, improvements through the latest technologies such as GIS and remote sensing are required. This research involves spatial analysis, which discusses the impact of vegetation on air quality and public health. Data of air quality at 20 different points, showing the concentration of four pollutants, namely NOx, CO, SO2, and PM10, with mean observations for 24-h, are taken from EPA, Lahore. The results show that the concentrations of SO2, CO, and PM10 are exceptionally high at the site of the Badshahi Mosque. The analysis shows that the highest polluted areas have the lowest vegetation levels, whereas areas with low pollution concentration have more vegetation cover. Moreover, less vegetation has a higher death rate attributable to household air pollution. The study suggests that greening strategies, vegetation screens, and vegetation barriers should mitigate urban heat air pollution and minimize the air pollution attributable deaths. For pollution and vegetation monitoring, strict laws and monitoring programs must be implemented in major cities.

Modeling the turnover intentions of Thai health-care personnel in pandemic times: moderating role of Covid-19 burnout.

PURPOSE: Covid-19 cases are rising at a high rate in Thailand. Thailand's administration has formulated many initiatives to combat the spread of coronavirus. However, during a pandemic, health-care workers have a diverse range of tasks that make it more challenging to continue working in hospitals. Consequently, the authors modeled the turnover intentions of health-care personnel to capture relevant psychological aspects of employees during the pandemic. Specifically, this study aims to focused on the moderating role of Covid-19 burnout (CBO) in the relationship between transformational leadership (TL) and job turnover intentions (JTI) with job satisfaction (JS) and knowledge hiding (KH) as mediators. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This research collected data using self-administered questionnaire. A two-stage partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is carried out as an analysis technique to measure the linear relationship among constructs. The study tests hypotheses (direct and indirect effects) using 310 sample size of health-care personnel. FINDINGS: The findings indicated that CBO intensified the JTI of health-care personnel and strengthened the association of JS and KH with JTI during the Covid-19 pandemic. TL had a negative indirect effect on JTI. In addition, JS had a negative impact on JTI. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The study highlights the importance of TL and JS as ways to reduce or alleviate JTI in health-care personnel during the Covid-19 pandemic in Thailand. Furthermore, CBO and KH can enhance JTI in health-care personnel.

Recent scenario and nexus of globalization to CO2 emissions: Evidence from wavelet and Quantile on Quantile Regression approach.

The ubiquitous increase in globalization and high carbon emissions, aiming to achieve non-zero emissions in the future, is a feasible challenge for a sustainable environment. Our study aims to investigate the impact of economic globalization on carbon emissions of the developed country covering the period of 1970-2019. The Wavelet Coherence (WC) and Quantile on Quantile Regression (QQR) approach have been used to analyse co-movements and feedback linkages of CO2 emissions with globalization, economic growth, and consumption of coal at different quantiles. The results obtained from WC show that there exist significant positive co-movements in the in-phase and leading globalization, economic growth, coal consumption with CO2 emissions. Further, the results of QQR indicate the existence of a positive and significant linkage between coal consumption and CO2 emissions for the majority of quantiles, the positive. Still, there is an insignificant association between CO2 with globalization and economic growth at most quantiles. Lastly, the quantile regression (QR) comparison with QQR suggests that our model is a good fit as the intercept estimates are similar and the slope coefficients follow a similar trend. To conclude, CO2 emissions have positive associations and co-movements with globalization, economic growth, and coal consumption, but their statistical significance varies and directly affects the Country.

Does Whipping Tournament Incentives Spur CSR Performance? An Empirical Evidence From Chinese Sub-national Institutional Contingencies.

The current study investigates whether tournament incentives motivate chief executive officer(s) (CEOs) to be socially responsible. Furthermore, it explores the role of sub-national institutional contingencies [i.e., state-owned enterprises (SOE) vs. non-SOEs, foreign-owned entities (FOE) vs. non-FOEs, cross-listed vs. non-cross-listed, developed region] in CEO tournament incentives and the corporate social responsibility performance (CSRP) relationship. Data were collected from all A-shared companies listed in the stock exchanges of China from 2014 to 2019. The study uses the baseline methodology of ordinary least squares (OLS) and cluster OLS regression. Moreover, firm-fixed effects regression, two-stage least squares regression, and propensity score matching deal with the endogeneity problem and check the robustness of the results. The results provide reliable evidence that tournament incentives motivate CEOs to be more socially responsible. On the other hand, sub-national institutional contingencies positively affect the association between CEO tournament incentives and CSRP. The findings have important implications for companies and regulators who wish to enhance CSP by providing incentives to top managers.

Groundwater contamination with the threat of COVID-19: Insights into CSR theory of Carroll's pyramid.

In this study, we elucidated the effect of sewage drain on groundwater contamination as including different contaminants, microbes, and pathogens, which deteriorating the groundwater by poor infiltration and seepage. This is getting severer in developing countries like India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, where unprocessed effluent is discharged into the water bodies. This study was planned to elucidate the effect of sewage drain (based on distance 0-5, 5-10, 15-20, 20-25 m) from two different sewage drains to explain the different physiochemical, and biological parameters including total soluble solids (TSS), chloride, total dissolved solids (TDS), calcium, total hardness, magnesium, nitrate, chemical oxygen demand (COD), dissolved oxygen (D.O.), and biological oxygen demand (BOD). Drainage channel number-1 results showed that E. coli (positive), coliform count (22.75-48.66 /100 mL), and BOD (8-25.75 mgL-1) remained above the permissible limit of the World Health Organization (WHO). Besides, drainage channel number 2 results exposed that E. coli (positive), coliform count (17.7-47 /100 mL), and BOD (6.25-21.5 mg/ L) was not within the permissible limit of WHO. The presence of COVID-19 in the stool has been significantly reported in the literature. The presence of stool in sewage drain leading to groundwater contamination can be an emerging threat to water pollution and could lead to the spread of COVID-19. This study helps to minimize this threat with the help of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Because organizational responsibility towards its society is one of the critical factors to contain numerous issues related to the society.

Scientific risk performance analysis and development of disaster management framework: A case study of developing Asian countries.

Disaster is a state of serious disruptions in the functionality of any society or county. Disasters pose serious economic or environmental impacts that surpass the capacity of the affected country or society to compete with the use of their assets. Recently, Pakistan significantly prone to health disasters due to COVID-19 among developing South Asian countries. The long-term impact of health disasters and other natural hazards put additional pressure mostly on the government's economic policy. It forces the government to follow a constructive approach like a disaster relief-based approach rather than a conventional mitigation management formation to reduce the impact of disaster risk. This study elaborates on the main issues associated with disaster preparedness as well as recovery of the economy and businesses of the country. For Scientific risk performance analysis, open-source data from the National Institute of Disaster Management (NDMA) has been utilized to study the current situation of COVID-19 in Pakistan. Results show Pakistan has been facing a highly vulnerable situation as more than three hundred and fifty thousand confirmed cases have been reported. Poor health and technical management facilities have been exposed against COVID-19 as Pakistan has a low heath budget because of its declining GDP growth rate in the world. This research will help in disaster preparedness and the development of a disaster risk management framework while designing strategies to deal with such pandemics in the future.

[Proteomics analysis of serum exosomes and its application in osteoporosis].

Exosomes are tiny vesicles secreted by cells, can be important mediators of cell-to-cell communication, and play unique roles in disease diagnosis and treatment. Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease with high incidence in the elderly, characterized by low bone mineral density and deterioration of bone microstructure. Highly specific diagnostic methods capable of identifying early-stage osteoporosis are urgently needed. In this study, serum exosomes were comprehensively enriched and characterized. In total, 179 exosomal proteins were identified using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, most of which are involved in important biological processes such as defense and immune responses. Through label free quantification of serum exosomes, 188, 224, and 185 proteins were identified in the normal, osteopenia, and osteoporosis groups, respectively. Quantitative results also showed that 17 proteins were significantly (p <0.05) dysregulated in the osteoporosis and osteopenia groups, including Integrin ß 3, Integrin α 2 ß 1, Talin 1, and Gelsolin. This study provides potential molecular markers for osteoporosis studs and will contributes to the elucidating the pathogenesis of osteoporosis.

Comparative proteomics analysis of microvesicles in human serum for the evaluation of osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis is an emerging health issue worldwide. Due to the decrease of bone mineral density and the deterioration of skeletal microarchitecture, osteoporosis could lead to increased bone fragility and higher fracture risk. Since lack of specific symptoms, novel serum proteomic indicators are urgently needed for the evaluation of osteoporosis. Microvesicles (MVs) are important messengers widely present in body fluids and have emerged as novel targets for the diagnosis of multiple diseases. In this study, MVs were successfully isolated from human serum and comprehensively characterized. Comparative proteomics analysis revealed differential MVs protein profiling in normal subjects, osteopenia patients, and osteoporosis patients. In total, about 200 proteins were identified and quantified from serum MVs, among which 19 proteins were upregulated (fold change >2) and five proteins were downregulated (fold change <0.5) in osteopenia group and osteoporosis group when compared with the normal group. Three protein candidates were selected for initial verification, including Vinculin, Filamin A, and Profilin 1. Profilin 1 was further pre-validated in an independent sample set, which could differentiate osteoporosis group from osteopenia group and normal group (p < 0.05). Our data collectively demonstrate that serum MVs proteome can be valuable indicators for the evaluation and diagnostics of bone loss disease.

Comparative Proteomic Analysis of Exosomes and Microvesicles in Human Saliva for Lung Cancer.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-derived microparticles present in most body fluids, mainly including microvesicles and exosomes. EV-harbored proteins have emerged as novel biomarkers for the diagnosis and prediction of different cancers. We successfully isolated microvesicles and exosomes from human saliva, which were further characterized comprehensively. Salivary EV protein profiling in normal subjects and lung cancer patients was systematically compared through utilizing LC-MS/MS-based label-free quantification. 785 and 910 proteins were identified from salivary exosomes and microvesicles, respectively. According to statistical analysis, 150 and 243 proteins were revealed as dysregulated candidates in exosomes and microvesicles for lung cancer. Among them, 25 and 40 proteins originally from distal organ cells were found in the salivary exosomes and microvesicles of lung cancer patients. In particular, 5 out of 25 and 9 out of 40 are lung-related proteins. Six potential candidates were selected for verification by Western blot, and four of them, namely, BPIFA1, CRNN, MUC5B, and IQGAP, were confirmed either in salivary microvesicles or in exosomes. Our data collectively demonstrate that salivary EVs harbor informative proteins that might be used for the detection of lung cancer through a noninvasive way.