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This paper aims to present an analytical approach for the determination of helical gear tooth geometry and introduces the necessary parameters. Tooth geometry including tooth chamfer, involute curve, root fillet, helix as well as tooth microgeometry can be obtained using the presented approach.

The presented analytical approach involves deriving the equivalent equations at the transverse plane rather than the normal plane. Moreover, numerical evaluation of microgeometry modifications is presented for tooth profile, tooth lead and flank twist.

An analytical approach is presented and equations are derived and explained in detail for helical gear tooth geometry calculation, including tooth microgeometry. Method 1, which was presented by Lopez and Wheway (1986) for obtaining the root fillet, is examined and it is proven that it does not work accurately for helical gears, but rather it works perfectly in the case of spur gears. Changing the normal plane parameters in Method 1 to the transverse plane ones does not give correct results. Two alternative methods, namely, Methods 2 and 3, are developed in the current research for the calculation of the tooth root fillet of helical gears. The presented methods and also the numerical evaluation presented for microgeometry modification are examined against the geometry obtained from Windows LDP software. The results show very good agreement, and it is feasible to apply the approach using the presented equations.

In the gear design process, it is important to model the correct gear tooth geometry and deliver all related dimensions and calculations accurately. However, the determination of helical gear tooth geometry has not been presented adequately by equations to facilitate gear modelling. The detailed helical gear tooth root has been enveloped using software tools that can simulate the cutter motion. Deriving those equations, presented in this article, provides gear design engineers and researchers with the possibility to model helical gears and perform design calculations in a structured, applicable and accurate method.

The purpose of this study is to understand the development of social capital in an Arab business environment, and provide an in-depth description of the nature and role of three key Arabic business relationship characteristics (ehsan, et-moone and wasta), their impact on each other and key influencing factors.

A qualitative research design was used, in which face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with innovation teams (22 team members) at six industrial small and medium-sized enterprises in Saudi Arabia. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, then analyzed (thematic coding) through NVivo.

The findings suggest that wasta, ehsan and et-moone align closely with the three social capital dimensions (structural, cognitive and relational); thus, developing these three relationship characteristics most likely results in developing social capital. The findings also expand the description of the three business relationship characteristics. Moreover, ehsan, et-moone and wasta appear to influence each other, and are affected by other factors such as an individual’s age and position, and the duration of the relationship. Ehsan has a positive influence on the development of et-moone, while the existence of et-moone appears to be necessary for the establishment of wasta-capital. A high level of ehsan might influence the relationship between et-moone and wasta-use and limit the negative usage of wasta.

International managers can improve the level of ehsan in their organizational and business relationships through assigning incentives and playing the role of moral champion to encourage ehsan behavior. Managers aiming to increase et-moone may choose team members with a high level of ehsan, emphasizing the development of personal relationships, and providing opportunities for socialization both inside and outside the workplace. A high level of ehsan and et-moone will assist managers to develop and use wasta.

This study makes a threefold contribution to the literature. First, it provides an expanded description of the three Arabic business relationship characteristics and how they align closely with the dimensions of social capital. Wasta aligns with the structural dimension and ehsan aligns with the cognitive dimension, while et-moone aligns closely with the relational dimension. Second, it suggests and shows how the three relationship characteristics might interact with each other. Ehsan appears to influence et-moone, and also the relationship between et-moone and wasta. Et-moone appears to have a positive influence on wasta use. Third, the findings also indicate that there might be other factors (e.g. age and position) that influence the interactions between the three business relationship characteristics.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between gender diversity and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) score/index. Specifically, the study describes extant research on theoretical perspectives, and the impact of women on corporate boards (WOBs) on carbon emission issues in the global perspective.

This study uses the carbon disclosure scores of the CDP from 2011 to 2013 (inclusive). A total observation for the three-year periods is 1,175 companies. However, based on data availability for the model, the sample size totals 331 companies in 33 countries with firms in 12 geographical locations. The authors used a model which is estimated using the fixed-effects estimator.

The outcomes of the study reveal that there is a positive relationship between gender diversity (WOB) and carbon disclosure information. In addition to establishing a relationship between CDP score and other control variables, this study also found a relationship with Board size, asset size, energy consumption and Tobin’s Q, which is common in the existing literature.

The limitations of the study mostly revolve around samples and the time period. To further test the generalizability and cross-sectional validity of the outcomes, it is suggested that the proposed framework be tested in more socially responsible firms.

There are increasing pressures for WOBs from diverse stakeholders, such as the European Commission, national governments, politicians, employer lobby groups, shareholders, Fortune and Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) rankings and best places for women to work lists. The study offers insights to policy makers implementing gender quota legislation.

The study has important implications for putting into practice good corporate governance and, in particular, gender diversity. The outcomes of the analyses advocate that companies that included women directors and had a smaller board size may expect to achieve a higher level of carbon emission performance and to voluntarily disclose the level of carbon information assessment requested by the CDP.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and subsequently validate a Maqasid al-Shari’ah-based performance evaluation model for Islamic banks.

Initially, a comprehensive review of the existing and relevant literature is carried out and a prototype evaluation model has been developed. This has been augmented and refined through in-depth interviews of Shari’ah scholars and banking experts. Afterwards, the modified model has been validated by taking inputs from academics and Islamic banking practitioners through a focus group discussion.

The major outcome of the present work is a Maqasid al-Shari’ah-based performance evaluation model for Islamic banks. At the inception of the work, the Maqasid frameworks of Imam al-Ghazali and Abu Zahrah were combined. The combined model incorporates various dimensions, elements and the corresponding measures of three components, namely, justice, education and maslahah.

Not being able to test the model statistically or empirically can be considered as a limitation.

The comprehensive theoretical framework of the developed model addresses all aspects of human well-being. Thus, if implemented the model will ensure welfare for all the stakeholders. It will also encourage the regulators to introduce new reporting standards which will be more reflective of Maqasid al-Shari’ah.

Fulfilling Maqasid will create a positive brand image for Islamic banks, which will attract more customers both Muslims and non-Muslims. Thus, this will create a wider scope for earning more revenues.

There has been concern that Islamic banks are converging towards conventional banking systems and the same performance measure instrument is being used to evaluate the performance of both Islamic and conventional banks. The present work has developed a Maqasid al-Shari’ah-based performance evaluation model for Islamic banks.

The aim of this article is to apply a re‐worked definition of ideology in order to account for cultural and political dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts.

The paper analyzes communiqués, press releases, magazines, pamphlets, speeches, interviews and other communicational media produced by insurgent organizations in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia, particularly in the post‐Cold War, in order to assess the characteristics of their ideological platforms. The extensive use of these primary sources aims at revealing the way the organizations see themselves, and how important ideological warfare is in their overall strategy.

In the post‐Cold War, and even in the early twenty‐first century, armed guerrillas persisted in linking their armed struggle to ideological platforms, though in more flexible versions. Nationalism, fundamentalism and socialism are functional to their tactics and strategies, and have tangible effects at strategic and tactical levels.

Three sample cases have been revised exhaustively, but that methodology impedes the examination of a wider spectrum of post‐Cold War insurgent organizations, which may balance the results here presented. However, the high relevance of the ideological component in contemporary armed conflicts, as shown in the Afghan, Congolese and Colombian cases, demonstrates the need for further academic works on this topic.

Re‐defining ideology, as the paper proposes, turns it into a powerful conceptual tool to be used in academic research, given that precisely the absence of comprehensive categories of analysis has prevented scholars from providing a full picture of the political and cultural dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts.

As economic‐focused researches on armed conflicts have dominated the field since the 1990s, the paper underlines the need for scholars to approach a broader scope in peace studies.

Social technologies can offer a strong means for organizations to manage their information flows and thus make changes on the organizational knowledge sharing, which may then be linked to employees’ productivity and performance enhancements. The purpose of this paper is to predict the impact of using the online social network on employee motivation and employee motivation effects on organizational knowledge sharing.

From employees of tax affairs organization, data are collected. For evaluating the model’s elements, a questionnaire was designed. It was revised by experts with significant experiences. For statistical analysis, SMART-PLS 3.2 is used.

Findings have confirmed the validity of the proposed model. The results also have indicated that online social networks, social trust and social goals have a positive and important impact on employee motivation. Furthermore, obtained results have revealed that organizational knowledge sharing is significantly influenced by employee motivation and organizational commitment.

The study contributes to the literature on organizational knowledge sharing and employee motivation in online social networking sites. Organizations could benefit from this knowledge by accepting that social networking sites must be considered as a critical component of the knowledge sharing, and precise targeting efforts could be directed for those users. Also, it could be exciting to study further factors affecting the development of organizational knowledge sharing in larger organizations.

The paper rises the understanding of what online social networking encompasses and how it can be utilized for the organization. The ideas and discussion are similarly applicable to libraries and may give them new visions into the delivery of social networking applications as part of their facilities to users.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has a positive impact on consumer behavior; however, how CSR affects consumer perceived value (CPV) has been neglected. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of CSR on CPV. More specifically, this paper investigates how the dimensions of CSR can generate the three types of CPV.

This research is confirmatory and therefore quantitative. Thus, the choice fell on the questionnaire survey of 108 customers of conventional banks in Morocco. The partial least square method was chosen for the data analysis.

The results show that the link between CSR and customer perceived value can vary according to the CSR dimension. This study finds that the economic dimension is the only one to contribute the three types of CPV (functional value, emotional value and social value). The environmental dimension affects only the functional value. The social dimension does not generate any value.

CSR is not the only variable that generates CPV. The consideration of other constructs seems to be considered. Restricting this study to a single category of banking customers and to a single sector is another limitation. Future research might replicate this study on a sample of clients from participatory banks as well as from other sectors.

The results can help Moroccan banks identify the dimensions of CSR that can meaningfully generate CPV. This will help them to increase customer loyalty, develop a competitive advantage and improve their performance by prioritizing CSR initiatives capable of creating value for consumers.

No previous research in Morocco, to the best of the author’s knowledge, has explored the effect of CSR on CPV. This paper therefore provides the first empirical evidence in North Africa on the link between CSR and CPV in Morocco. This study also extends previous studies by considering CSR as a multidimensional construct covering three dimensions (social, environmental and economic).

The purpose of this study is to investigate the dynamic relationship that exists between energy consumption, environmental pollution and per capita economic growth in Tanzania. The energy consumption is represented by electricity usage in kilowatt hours (kWh) per capita, while environmental pollution is represented by carbon emission per metric tons and economic growth by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

This investigation is made based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve using time series annual data from 1975 to 2013 by applying the more robust causality technique of Toda and Yamamoto non-Causality test (1995), Impulse response and Variance Decomposition, Augumented and Dickey–Fueller test and Philips and Perron Test of unit root tests.

Economic growth rate (LGDP) and energy consumption per capita (LENGY), both being unidirectional, cause environmental pollution through carbon emission (LCO₂) in Tanzania. Interestingly, after using impulse response, a significant and positive economic growth (GDP per capita) was found due to shocks from electricity per capita (energy consumption) and carbon emission (LCO₂) with time. The Variance Decomposition suggested that the percentage of the variations due to shocks or innovations of economic growth (LGDP) and energy consumption (LENGY) to carbon emission is very high and significant, accounting to 46 and 41 per cent, respectively, in 10 years to come.

The study recommends that, in the future, the relationship be examined using super-exogeneity causality tests that takes into consideration the changes in policy or regime in contrast to Toda and Yamamoto. Furthermore, the addition of other variables such as fixed capital formation and labor force, which were not considered in this study, may result in strong correlation.

The results imply that the government of Tanzania can adopt environment conservation and energy saving policies without affecting its economic growth. As a matter of fact, to put a stop to persistent environmental pollution in Tanzania, the energy saving policy should be put in place rather quickly. It is imperative that the government implements policies and strategies that ensure continuous economic growth without forsaking the environment.

Despite the increase in carbon emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in Tanzania since 2000, to date, no previous work has been done to investigate their multivariate relationship. This is the first study that uses the Toda and Yamamoto non-Causality test, Impulse Response and Variance Decomposition Analysis to investigate a trivariate relationship of the variables mentioned above.

Geographical query formulation is one of the key difficulties for users in search engines. The purpose of this study is to improve geographical search by proposing a novel geographical query reformulation (GQR) technique using a geographical taxonomy and word senses.

This work introduces an approach for GQR, which combines a method of query components separation that uses GeoNames, a technique for reformulating these components using WordNet and a geographic taxonomy constructed using the latent semantic analysis method.

The proposed approach was compared to two methods from the literature, using the mean average precision (MAP) and the precision at 20 documents (P@20). The experimental results show that it outperforms the other techniques by 15.73% to 31.21% in terms of P@20 and by 17.81% to 35.52% in terms of MAP.

According to the experimental results, the best created taxonomy using the geographical adjacency taxonomy builder contains 7.67% of incorrect links. This paper believes that using a very big amount of data for taxonomy building can give better results. Thus, in future work, this paper intends to apply the approach in a big data context.

Despite this, the reformulation of geographical queries using the new proposed approach considerably improves the precision of queries and retrieves relevant documents that were not retrieved using the original queries. The strengths of the technique lie in the facts of reformulating both thematic and spatial entities and replacing the spatial entity of the query with terms that explain the intent of the query more precisely using a geographical taxonomy.

The purpose of this paper is the study of existence and multiplicity of solutions for a nonlinear discrete boundary value problems involving the p-laplacian.

The approach is based on variational methods and critical point theory.

Theorem 1.1. Theorem 1.2. Theorem 1.3. Theorem 1.4.

The paper is original and the authors think the results are new.