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The purpose of this study is to explain the poor informativeness of earnings in dual-class firms by examining the quality of earnings and the information environment.

The earnings informativeness, earnings quality and information environment of dual-class firms are compared with a matched sample of single-class firms. The authors have performed the returns-earnings association tests, examine the quality of earnings by using proxies for discretionary accruals, and examine the information environment by employing four empirical constructs: the analyst forecast dispersion, absolute forecast errors, Amihud’s (2002) illiquidity measure, and the bid-ask spread.

The results show that the quality of earnings is better while the quality of the information environment is worse in dual-class firms compared to single-class firms. Overall, the results suggest that an inferior information environment is a plausible explanation for the low informativeness of dual-class firms’ earnings.

The results provide empirical support for Dechow et al. (2010) that the use of the earnings-returns association measure to draw conclusions about the quality of earnings is not appropriate in the presence of a poor information environment.

This is the first study to empirically show that low earnings informativeness in dual-class firms can be explained by the inferior quality of the information environment.

Human evolution has witnessed the highest level of metamorphism overages. COVID-19 alarmed us when we were unceasingly running toward monetary benefits and money, the significance of health. That initiated the thought process of improvising the health and healthcare infrastructure, leading to the birth of the health cooperative as a reform. During the state of COVID services, operations of the hospital were unreachable due to the unavailability of doctors, facilities, hiked charges, and lack of insurance coverage made people disbelieve in the system. Many social activists propose the idea of healthcare cooperatives to foster healthcare needs. The study guides us to understand the roles of healthcare cooperatives like the establishment of service facilities, modernisation of existing facilities, expansion to various topographical locations, and healthcare education to the general public, repair, and renovate the instrumentation in the medical field. The study also finds the ways and means of self-sustainability of health cooperatives with dependency on government financial support during the initial take-off. The benefits of cooperatives contributing to the NDHM and supporting the development of healthcare infrastructure in rural areas. The study enables us to find the factors that healthcare cooperatives need to consider for providing the right benefit to the citizens and factors for the self-sustained and self-resilient mode of seamless operation. The study has two different data collecting instruments, one to collect the data from the public and other from healthcare professionals. The result of the study reveals the mechanisms through which healthcare cooperatives can provide well-structured healthcare support to the nation.

There is empirical evidence that a firm's addition to S&P 500 results in significant abnormal returns and an increase in a stock's liquidity. The purpose of this paper is to argue that changes in the information environment after the year 2000 due to the implementation of Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD), decimalization and Sarbanes Oxley Act, should result in reduced abnormal returns in the post‐2000 period.

The authors compare the abnormal returns and liquidity changes around the announcement day of firm's addition to S&P 500 in the pre‐ and post‐2000 periods. Univariate and multivariate tests are used to control for factors that research shows affect the abnormal returns around additions to S&P 500.

It is found that the reduction in informational asymmetry in the post‐2000 period has resulted in a significant decrease in the abnormal return on the announcement day of additions to S&P 500 index and changes in the stock's liquidity in the post announcement period are now marginal.

Existing literature related to changes in the abnormal returns around additions to S&P 500 does not account for changes in the information environment in the two sub periods, pre‐ and post‐2000. The results may have implications for studies related to additions to S&P 500 where the sample period spans over the two sub periods.

Universities are increasingly looking at entrepreneurship as a way to bridge theory and practice. This is important in these challenging times when unexpected events and occurrences take place. It is becoming more important for universities to respond in an entrepreneurial manner to new trends to capitalise on learning and research opportunities. The aim of this chapter is to discuss how universities are acting in an entrepreneurial way by responding to educational and social challenges. This will help to understand fruitful new areas of teaching, research, service and engagement that can occur in a university setting based on entrepreneurial thinking.

The adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) is important for sustaining Indian agriculture in the face of climate change. Despite considerable effort by both national and international agricultural organizations to promote CSAPs in India, adoption of these practices is low. This study aims to examine the elements that affect the likelihood and intensity of adoption of multiple CSAPs in Bihar, India.

The probability and intensity of adoption of CSAPs are analyzed using multivariate and ordered probit models, respectively.

The results show significant correlations between multiple CSAPs, indicating that their adoptions are interrelated, providing opportunities to exploit the complementarities. The results confirm that both the probability and intensity of adoption of CSAPs are affected by numerous factors, such as demographic characteristics, farm plot features, access to market, socio-economics, climate risks, access to extension services and training. Farmers who perceive high temperature as the major climate risk factor are more likely to adopt crop diversification and minimum tillage. Farmers are less likely to adopt site-specific nutrient management if faced with short winters; however, they are more likely to adopt minimum tillage in this case. Training on agricultural issues is found to have a positive impact on the likelihood and the intensity of CSAPs adoption.

The major policy recommendations coming from of our results are to strengthen local institutions (public extension services, etc.) and to provide more training on CSAPs.

By applying multivariate and ordered probit models, this paper provides some insights on the long-standing discussions on whether farmers adopt CSAPs in a piecemeal or in a composite way.

This study aims to examine whether or not residential properties closer to landfill sites have lower offer values by the developers. That is, by analyzing real estate data and landfill site locations, the study seeks to provide insights into whether properties situated closer to landfill sites tend to have a lower offer values than those located farther away.

The study is exploratory in nature, and a case study approach is applied. A landfill site named “Uruli Devachi” is selected in the region of Pune district, and data is collected from 102 developers selling residential projects within a radius of 15 km (about 9.32 mi). The gathered data is analyzed by using basic descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The OLS regression helps to determine whether there is a relationship between the distance of a residential property from a landfill site and its offer value.

The findings suggest that landfill sites have a detrimental impact on residential property offer values, with the negative impact increasing with proximity to a landfill site. The negative effect seems to vanish after over 10 km (about 6.21 mi). The developers provide extra facilities including a clubhouse, a children’s play area, a gym and a swimming pool in an effort to mitigate the negative effects of the landfill site on residential properties.

The findings of this study could have implications for property developers, real estate professionals and policymakers in understanding how landfill proximity might impact property offer values.

This study presents many novelties for the Indian housing market: the landfill sites do have a negative effect on the offer value of residential property; the closer the residential property to a landfill site, the higher the negative effect. Further, the developers try and mitigate the negative effect of landfill sites on residential properties by providing additional amenities such as a clubhouse, children’s play park, gym and swimming pool.

Many investigations are going on in monitoring, contact tracing, predicting and diagnosing the COVID-19 disease and many virologists are urgently seeking to create a vaccine as early as possible. Even though there is no specific treatment for the pandemic disease, the world is now struggling to control the spread by implementing the lockdown worldwide and giving awareness to the people to wear masks and use sanitizers. The new technologies, including the Internet of things (IoT), are gaining global attention towards the increasing technical support in health-care systems, particularly in predicting, detecting, preventing and monitoring of most of the infectious diseases. Similarly, it also helps in fighting against COVID-19 by monitoring, contract tracing and detecting the COVID-19 pandemic by connection with the IoT-based smart solutions. IoT is the interconnected Web of smart devices, sensors, actuators and data, which are collected in the raw form and transmitted through the internet. The purpose of this paper is to propose the concept to detect and monitor the asymptotic patients using IoT-based sensors.

In recent days, the surge of the COVID-19 contagion has infected all over the world and it has ruined our day-to-day life. The extraordinary eruption of this pandemic virus placed the World Health Organization (WHO) in a hazardous position. The impact of this contagious virus and scarcity among the people has forced the world to get into complete lockdown, as the number of laboratory-confirmed cases is increasing in millions all over the world as per the records of the government.

COVID-19 patients are either symptomatic or asymptotic. Symptomatic patients have symptoms such as fever, cough and difficulty in breathing. But patients are also asymptotic, which is very difficult to detect and monitor by isolating them.

Asymptotic patients are very hazardous because without knowing that they are infected, they might spread the infection to others, also asymptotic patients might be having very serious lung damage. So, earlier prediction and monitoring of asymptotic patients are mandatory to save their life and prevent them from spreading.

Milling is a flexible creation process for the manufacturing of dies and aeronautical parts. While machining thin-walled parts, heat generation during machining essentially affects the accuracy. The workpiece temperature (WT), as well as the responses like material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness (SR) for input parameters like cutting speed (CS), feed rate (F), depth-of-cut (DOC), step over (SO) and tool diameter (TD), becomes critical for sustaining the accuracy of the thin walls.

Response surface methodology was used to make 46 tests. To convert the multi-character problem into a single-character problem, the weightage was assessed using the entropy approach and the grey relational coefficient (GRC) was determined. To investigate the connection among input parameters and single-objective (GRC), a fuzzy mathematical modelling technique was used. The optimal performance of process parameters was estimated by grey relational entropy grade (GREG)-fuzzy and genetic algorithm (GA) optimization.

SR was found to be a significant process parameter, with CS, feed and DOC, respectively. Similarly, F, DOC and TD were found to be significant process parameters with MRR, respectively, and F, DOC, SO and TD were found to be significant process parameters with WT, respectively. GREG-fuzzy-GA found more suitable for minimizing the WT with the constraint s of SR and MRR and provide maximum desirability of 0.665. The projected and experimental values have a good agreement, with a standard error of 5.85%, and so the responses predicted by the suggested method are better optimized.

The GREG-fuzzy-GA is a new hybrid technique for analysing Inconel625 behaviour during machining in a 2.5D milling process.

The aim of this study is to determine the fracture behavior of wool felt and fabric based epoxy composites and their responses to electromagnetic waves.

Notched and unnotched tensile tests of composites made of wool only and hybridized with a glass fiber layer were carried out, and fracture behavior and toughness at macro scale were determined. They were exposed to electromagnetic waves between 8 and 18 GHz frequencies using two horn antennas.

The keratin and lignin layer on the surface of the wool felt caused lower values to be obtained compared to the mechanical values given by pure epoxy. However, the use of wool felt in the symmetry layer of the laminated composite material provided higher mechanical values than the composite with glass fiber in the symmetry layer due to the mechanical interlocking it created. The use of wool in fabric form resulted in an increase in the modulus of elasticity, but no change in fracture toughness was observed. As a result of the electromagnetic analysis, it was also seen in the electromagnetic analysis that the transmittance of the materials was high, and the reflectance was low throughout the applied frequency range. Hence, it was concluded that all of the manufactured materials could be used as radome material over a wide band.

Sheep wool is an easy-to-supply and low-cost material. In this paper, it is presented that sheep wool can be evaluated as a biocomposite material and used for radome applications.

The combined evaluation of felt and fabric forms of a natural and inexpensive reinforcing element such as sheep wool and the combined evaluation of fracture mechanics and electromagnetic absorption properties will contribute to the evaluation of biocomposites in aviation.