Renewable energy has become a crucial topic in recent years as the world is moving towards environment friendly and sustainable energy sources. The aim of this research paper is to analyze the effectiveness and efficiency of renewable energy resources such as geothermal, hydro, solar and wind energy in comparison to typical and traditional energy resources such as oil and coal. This paper focuses on the current state of renewable energy adoption, the benefits and drawbacks of all types of renewable energy resources, and the challenges faced in implementing renewable energy on a large scale. Through a comprehensive literature review, this paper discusses the methodologies and results of various studies conducted to understand the potential of renewable energy sources by secondary means. This research paper also presents an original analysis of renewable energy data to identify the most efficient and cost-effective renewable energy source. The results of this study indicate that renewable energy sources can be an effective and efficient replacement for traditional energy sources, but they face significant challenges in adoption and implementation. The study concludes with recommendations for future research and policy changes that can support the growth of renewable energy sources.

This study compares return and volatility performance of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with high-ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) rating vs. low-ESG rating. The paper also examines time-series data predictability by identifying their positive dependence and volatility asymmetry properties, and examines the performance of two combinations of short-memory models i.e., autoregressive moving average and exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARMA-EGARCH); autoregressive moving average and asymmetric power autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARMA-APARCH) and two long-memory models, autoregressive moving average and fractionally integrated exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARFIMA-FIGARCH); and autoregressive fractionally-integrated moving average and asymmetric power autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARFIMA-APARCH). The study found that low-ESG rating ETFs on average have slightly significant higher returns and also lower volatility compared to their high-ESG rating counterparts. Evidence of asymmetric volatility properties are also present on both high-ESG and low-ESG rating ETFs returns. The study also observed that for both high-ESG and low-ESG rating ETFs denote a stationarity, but non-invertible process in their returns. Results can provide fresh understanding in the topic of leverage effects and volatility that can open future research channels to academicians.

Given the rapid development of live streaming commerce in China, this study focuses on the interactivity and sociability of live streaming shopping activities and explores online consumers’ real-time interaction intentions and trust-building behaviours with online merchants. To discover the real-time interaction between online consumers and online merchants, this study builds a research model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). Through the data analysis based on the partial least squares path modelling and variance-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the key findings state that, three factors, including attitude, subject norm, and perceived control, positively affect online consumers’ real-time interaction intentions and lead them to build trust with online merchants. Meanwhile, control variables, including gender, age, and educational background, demonstrate insignificant effects across the model. Unlike existing literature, the current study pays much attention to the interactive characteristics of live streaming shopping activities and can provide some valuable suggestions both for online consumers and online merchants, which can promote the co-development of the commercial and social aspects of live streaming platforms.

Carbon emissions trading is essential for reducing carbon emissions, and its role in regional carbon unlocking needs further clarification. This study uses the difference-in-differences (DID) model and synthetic control model (SCM) to evaluate the carbon unlocking effect of China’s six pilot carbon trading provinces. This study found that (1) carbon lock-in effects in China are mainly influenced by technology lock-in and fixed input lock-in; (2) each province’s overall carbon lock-in level presents a decreasing trend yearly, and the regional distribution presents characteristics of “low in the east and high in the west”; (3) carbon emissions trading pilot policies effectively promote the carbon unlocking effect in pilot regions overall, with Guangdong having the most significant unlocking effect. Conversely, Beijing, Hubei, Chongqing, and Shanghai also had different degrees of carbon unlocking. Finally, (4) an assessment of impact mechanisms indicates that technology and institutions have a significant mediating role in effectively promoting carbon unlocking under the carbon trading policy. Conversely, social behavior has an inverse effect, and fixed assets are not affected by the policy. This study demonstrates the carbon unlocking effect of carbon emissions trading and provides a quantitative reference for implementing carbon emissions trading policies and determining carbon unlocking paths.

Self-employment is often associated with entrepreneurship and regarded as a driver of innovation, job creation and economic growth. As such, many countries have policies to promote and support self-employment. One mechanism for self-employment to drive job growth is for sole traders to become an employer through hiring employees. However, there are few studies that investigate if solo self-employment helps the transitions into employership. Using the Understanding Society data, this study shows that in the UK labour market solo self-employment does not work as a ‘steppingstone’ to employership. This raises the question why self-employment should be promoted through public policy as in the UK and many other developed countries.

Reckless behavior by business leaders can be a systemic risk for individual firms and the economies in which the firms exist. We propose that a synthesis of behavioral economics, in particular prospect theory, and the study of psychopathy may help researchers better understand why some business leaders engage in high-risk criminal activity. We propose that psychopathy is associated with an abnormal response to negative consequences. Where traditional Prospect Theory proposes that people are loss avoidant, we propose that people high on the trait of psychopathy may be more motivated by gains and will be risk seeking in high reward/high risk situations for which most people will avoid risk. We propose two empirical study designs that may be used to test the framework in the future.

Breast cancer, as a malignant tumor with easy metastasis and poor prognosis, threatens the health of women around the world. Increasing studies have shown that the Bcl-2 family of apoptosis-related proteins is often expressed abnormally in breast cancer. The Bcl-2 homology 3 (BH3) mimetic peptide can bind and neutralize Bcl-2, preventing its binding to the apoptosis "effector" proteins Bak and Bax, thereby promoting the apoptosis process. However, there is a lack of effective intracellular delivery system for BH3 to exert its biological activity. Therefore, this study utilized an activatable supercharged polypeptide (ASCP) tumor-targeted delivery platform based on pH and protease response to achieve the targeted release of BH3 at the tumor site. Ultimately, intracellular delivery of BH3 was achieved and induced apoptosis of breast tumor cells, preventing the development of breast cancer.

Environmental degradation is becoming a fundamental issue as it is directly associated with human lives and environmental sustainability. This research particularly highlights the significance of green transportation taxes in achieving environmental sustainability due to limited available literature considering the environmental sustainability and green transportation taxes nexus. By employing the newly developed QARDL approach, this study is unfolding the linkages of green transportation taxes on transport-based CO2 emissions for Chinese economy spanning 1992 to 2020. The results infer that green transportation taxes to enhance environmental sustainability in the long-run for the highest quantiles, i.e., 0.70 to 0.95. Though, green transportation taxes enhance environmental sustainability in all quantiles in the short-run. Based on these results, the study suggests that the Chinese government and policymakers should increase green transportation taxes that help in combating CO2 emissions, which ultimately enhances environmental sustainability.

Technological advancements in the last few decades have created energy and cost-efficient power plants, but it is not a prominent feature in the electricity supply-chain. While many long-term and short-term energy alternatives are available, Pakistan still has a significant number of people who do not have access to electricity; as there are many areas that are neither connected to the national grid nor the provincial grids. This paper aims to find the reasons behind the energy crisis in Pakistan, keeping Islamabad as the focus of study, and to find the effect of use of renewable resources on the reduction of shortage of electricity. We will be focusing on the facts that how energy crisis has been affecting the economic growth of the country.  Our data collection will be based on primary sources and secondary sources along with which we will be conducting pilot study to check the feasibility of using the solar energy as an alternative form of electricity.

The sensitive nature of interest rate has spurred empirical interests on the factors that determine it. This paper examined the joint impact of exchange rate and foreign direct investment inflows on interest rate in Nigeria over the period from 1981-2022. The study made use of the auto regressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test and results of findings reveal that in both the short-run and the long-run the impact of the interaction between FDI inflows and exchange rate on real interest rate was negative and significant. Also, while credit to the private sector was found to have significant positive impact on real interest rate in both the time horizons, the impact of consumer price index was negative only in the short. Oil revenue was found to impact positively on real interest rate only in the long-run, but the impact of broad money supply was negative and significant in both the short-run and the long-run. The study suggests that policies to regulate domestic interest rate should focus on joint regulation of both exchange rate and FDI inflows and this requires a synergy between monetary and fiscal policies.

This study aims to investigate the factors influencing consumers’ cognitive attitude towards the brands of products during their consumption willingness, behaviors and choices. Taking pork brands as an example, this study conducts a questionnaire by using a random sampling method in 165 farmers’ meat markets and 54 supermarkets in Tianhe District, Yuexiu District, Liwan District, the representative districts in Guangzhou city in China, and obtains 1,050 valid observations of the pork consumers. The empirical results via a logit regression show that the factors significantly enhance consumers’ brand cognitive attitude include younger age; lower perception of product safety; less cognition of green food, frailer awareness of fresh, cold, and frozen meats, as well as weaker ability to identify a specific product. Also, stronger consumers’ brand attitude results from larger amount of money spent in a single purchase, stronger cognition of nuisance-free food, and higher identification of different types of pork meats.

In the UK, a concern of prejudice, as well as a lack of gender identity and sexual orientation documentation, implies that LGBT persons mostly hidden to health-care providers. One of a review was carried out to examine primary literature on the psychological support requirements of LGBT cancer patients when receive treatment and after. Important findings: Key topics that have been mentioned include the negative impact on mental health, health care professional education and the absence of inclusive support groups, the pervasiveness of discriminatory practices within healthcare services. The research demonstrates how LGBT cancer patients are being failed by healthcare professionals in terms of psychological support, resulting in unmet requirements. There are some suggestions use to guarantee an LGBT inclusive atmosphere in cancer care, as well as the development of support programmes for LGBT people with cancer. Practical connotation: LGBT wellness and awareness education should be offered for HCP personnel. The registration and tracking of gender identity and sexual orientation is critical to ensuring that LGBT persons are not 'invisible' in cancer, radiation, and continued studies. LGBT cancer groups and services should be established, since information from the study indicated that LGBT individuals are actively seeking these services.

This study examines the role of news sentiments in the GCC equity markets’ connectedness. We collected news titles for the period from 22nd June 2006 until 31st December 2020 from Gulf News, which is the most widely read English newspaper in the Arab World. We filter these news titles using a carefully designed list of keywords that capture public sentiment on matters related to financial markets. Next, we classify the news titles to compute the geographically distinguished sentiment indexes that allow for a detailed analysis of the source of news sentiment spillovers to compare the impact of domestic versus regional sentiments on the equity markets of GCC countries. Our quantile regression results reveal that equity markets in the GCC are most sensitive to news sentiments when underperforming. Moreover, our results from the connectedness approach suggest that the UAE equity markets are most influenced by domestic sentiments, whilst the KSA equity market is most influenced by regional sentiments from the other GCC countries. Mixed results are found for other countries. The time-varying component of this study also shows that the influence of news spillovers intensified during the major crises events, including the COVID-19 outbreak.

Financial development and industrial structure optimization are two-wheeled engines for promoting high-quality development, but the causal identification of the two is still poorly understood. This paper addresses this research gap by comprehensively analyzing the relationship between them. Regional economic growth is a necessary condition for achieving high-quality development. Taking China as an example, this study empirically examines the role of financial development and industrial structure optimization in high-quality development using the entropy method, fixed effects, mediation effects and instrumental variable regression. The study results show that (i) financial development has actively promoted regional economic growth. (ii) The driving effect on the central and western regions is greater than that on the eastern region. (iii) There are differences in the mediating effect of industrial structure optimization and rationalization between different levels of financial development and economic growth. (iv) In addition, the mediating effect of industrial structure optimization is larger in the eastern region than in the central and western regions. (v) The mediating effect of industrial structure rationalization is not obvious in the eastern region, but has a masking effect in the central and western regions. Our findings provide new strategies for financial development and industrial structure optimization in developing countries.

As the underlying institutional design for enterprise risk management, it is important to study whether and how internal control affects enterprise technological innovation in the current context of increased economic policy uncertainty. Based on the principal-agent theory and information asymmetry theory, this paper explores the impact of internal control on corporate technological innovation using the listed company data from 2009-2019 CSMAR database, and obtains the following research conclusions: (1) the quality of internal control positively affects the corporate technological innovation. (2) The operational risk plays an intermediary role in the relationship between the internal control affecting the corporate technological innovation. (3) The degree of market competition positively moderates the impact of internal control on enterprise technological innovation. (4) Relative to non-stateowned enterprises and non-high-tech enterprises, the quality of internal control of state-owned enterprises and high-tech enterprises has a more significant impact on enterprise technological innovation. This paper enriches the consequences of the study of internal control on the one hand, and on the other hand, it provides a new perspective for improving technological innovation, and it provides certain guidance for further improving the level of corporate governance.

Trust beneficiary protection constitutes an important legal system in the trust industry. This paper, based upon the study approach of the “Theory of Law and Finance”, establishes the trust beneficiary protection index of China. We also test the influence of trust beneficiary protection on the performance of trust companies. As indicated by our study’s results, an “inverted U-shaped” relationship exists between the degree of trust beneficiary protection and the performance of trust companies. In a period when the trust law system has not yet been well established, strengthening trust beneficiary protection could help facilitate the growth of trust company performance. However, this facilitation effect gradually diminishes as the trust law system becomes more perfect. This in turn means that, after reaching a certain peak, conferring the beneficiary with more rights of supervision and participation would cause the performance of trust companies to decline. Improving regional legal environments could also help facilitate the growth of trust company performance. In addition, this facilitation effect is subject to the influence of the nature of trust company controllers. In trust companies controlled by local state-owned capitals, we find that the facilitation effect of the improvement of regional legal environments on trust company performance is inhibited. In trust companies controlled by non-state-owned capitals, however, the facilitation effect of the improvement of regional legal environments on trust company performance is enhanced.

When human civilization is thriving to the rapid economic and social development, the deteriorating ecological environment has also pressured the society to put environmental protection issues on the agenda future development. Therefore, green innovation is not merely a requirement for a corporate’s long-term development but the basics of sustainable development of human society. As an objective indicator to measure a company's commitment to social responsibility, corporate environmental responsibility has an extremely important impact on a corporate's business philosophy and innovation strategy. However, the existing literature rarely studies between these two variables. This paper collects the data of listed companies from 2010 to 2019 and empirically tests the impact of corporate environmental responsibility on corporate green innovation. The study finds that corporate environmental responsibility can promote green innovation by reducing financing constraints, improving corporate governance and increasing government subsidies and R&D investment, and the result is still significant under a series of robustness checks. The placebo test suggests that the Jiangsu enterprise responsibility construction pilot has facilitated the development of enterprises' green innovation to a great extent. The conclusions enrich existing literature on corporate environmental responsibility and corporate green innovation, providing implications for government policy orientation, social atmosphere guidance and corporate strategic decision-making process.

The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on economies everywhere, affecting everything from supply chain networks to international trade as a direct result of the increased vulnerability of more nations and the disruption of the activities of key traders. This research study examines how COVID-19 affected the supply chain on a worldwide and regional scale, as well as the systemic policy and economic steps governments and businesses took to rebound and maintain resilience. COVID-19 has had a significant influence, prompting governments and businesses to take steps to fortify their operations and businesses against disruptions, highlight the necessity for resilience in supply chains and emphasize the importance of managing risk. The supply value chain is at risk from the prolonged implementation of COVID-19 trade measures like border closure, export restrictions, and import sanctions. Many businesses are transitioning from a "recovery mode" to a resilient and sustainable mode" and are beginning to plan for the future. The study suggests that corporate and government leaders should prioritize proactive and adaptable policy, economic, and structural adjustment. This research will be useful to policymakers and industry leaders in their efforts to lessen the effect of COVID-19 on the global supply chain by enforcing governmental, economic, and business reforms built on resilient supply chains and mitigating economic risks during tough times.

This article discusses the pressing need to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into education to facilitate customizable, individualized, and on-demand learning pathways. At the same time, while AI has the potential to expand the learner base and improve learning outcomes, the development of NACE Competencies and durable skills – communication, critical thinking, creativity, leadership, adaptability, and emotional intelligence - must be purposefully integrated in curriculum design now more than ever. Recent studies have shown that AI-driven learning pathways can achieve outcomes more quickly, but this comes at the cost of the development of durable skills. Therefore, traditional student-to-student and student-to-teacher interactions must be prioritized. As such, this study proposes a balanced approach to curriculum design to ensure the best outcomes for learners, where durable skill development is prioritized alongside subject-specific skills and rote memorization. Additionally, the article highlights the need for a combination of Just in Time Training (JITT) approaches, facilitated by AI technology, to reach the implementation of durable skills. The article concludes by questioning how to develop human skills in an increasingly AI-driven education system and emphasizes the importance of curriculum design and traditional learning approaches in creating a cohesive learning experience that develops durable skills in students. It is necessary to recognize that AI-driven education cannot replace the development of human skills, and that traditional interactions play a crucial role in developing these skills.

We explore the connectedness and portfolio implications between Islamic and conventional bonds in global and GCC regions. We also compare which bonds performed better during our sample period. Unlike previous studies, we focus on Islamic bond markets compared to their conventional counterparts and highlight the GCC bonds (Islamic and conventional) in respect of global bonds. We apply the DCC-GJR-GARCH (1,1) method, the Sharpe ratio, and the portfolio implications strategy over the period from September 1, 2013, to February 23, 2022. Our time-varying results suggest that the relationship among all variables varies over time, but most of them are positive, suggesting that there are fewer diversification opportunities between Islamic and conventional bonds. Hedging and diversification benefits are found only in the limited period among these variables, especially between GCC bonds and global bonds, and global Sukuk and GCC Sukuk. The findings of risk-adjusted returns reveal that Islamic bonds outperform their conventional counterparts. Moreover, mixed results are found in the case of hedging costs, and the majority of the fund, based on optimal weights, should be invested in Islamic bonds. Our study endows investors and regulators in the global and GCC markets with new insights on how to shield their investments and the financial system from financial crises through a hedging strategy with Islamic finance.