درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The Supply Chain Network Design (SCND) with perishability is an active research topic. The Agri-fresh Food Supply Chain (AFSC) is a relevant topic to SCND and this study aims to model a new AFSC for a real-world case study. Regarding the traditional AFSC, the geographically dispersed small farmers transport their product individually to market for selling. This leads to a higher transportation cost, which is the major cause of farmers’ low profitability. This paper formulates a traditional product movement model to represent the existing AFSC. The concept of sharing economic approach is employed by the aggregate and collaborative transportation of products to minimize transportation inefficiency. This paper proposes an aggregate product movement with the vehicle routing model to re-design an AFSC for a case study in Iran based on the data of ETKA Company-the largest domestic agri-fresh food supply chain. A four-echelon, multi-period, Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) approach for the proposed location-inventory-routing model is formulated for perishable products via considering the clustering of farmers to minimize the total distribution cost.

The Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry rely heavily on Building Information Modeling (BIM). BIM is the collection of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), interacting policies, and procedures. BIM is a tool for managing digital project data during the life cycle of a building. Despite the many benefits and features of BIM, the Malaysian construction industry's proliferation is confronted with adoption issues. Therefore, this research study intends to find the effect of BIM adoption factors in Malaysian AEC. Quantitative data collection from construction firms is gathered. The proposed model's theoretical foundations are based on Technology, Organization Environment framework. The model is tested and validated with the Smart PLS tool. The study's findings indicate that Perceived benefits, Organizational Capabilities, and Trialability are drivers of BIM adoption. Perceived cost and Insecurity are the barriers to BIM adoption. Perceived ease of use and compatibility does not affect BIM adoption. Finally, this study performs Importance Performance Map Analysis to provide recommendations to AEC stakeholders to address the BIM adoption issues for enhancing its diffusion in Malaysia.

The focus of this study is on lecturer’s use of online technology in the higher education context. Precisely, this study aims to understand the effect of personal innovativeness in IT (PI) in determining technology adoption behavior of lecturers in the higher education institutes in Sri Lanka. In this study, the variable of personal innovativeness in IT is integrated with the UTAUT framework and thereby the causal paths which effects VLE adoption intention of individuals is examined. Literature suggests that domain-specific innovativeness is a crucial factor in determining an individual’s adoption of technological innovations. Therefore, understanding the multifaceted effects of this factor along with other significant factors can help higher education institutes to effectively endorse online technology among lectures, generating productive payoffs in the long run. The quantitative method was used for data collection, which yielded # 1253 responses through the Question Pro online survey tool. The targeted respondents were the registered lecturers in higher education institutes of Sri Lanka, selected based on simple random sampling method. Structural equation modelling (SEM) procedure was employed for data analysis using IBM SPSS (ver.21) and AMOS (Ver.26). The structural path analysis resulted in partial mediation, confirming that “lecturer’s innovativeness in IT” exerts its influence on VLE adoption intention by altering the mediators set in the study. Further, the study validated a unique set of factors that determine lecturer’s acceptance of VLE in a higher education setting.

A connection has long existed between tourism and spirituality. More specifically, travel for spiritual purposes has for centuries been a popular manifestation of human mobility. Pilgrimage and other spiritually-motivated travel is widely considered to be one of the earliest forms of tourism and nowadays, religious tourism, in all its forms, has evolved into a major sector of the global tourism market. Over the last three decades, however, an alternative perspective on the tourism-spirituality relationship has emerged. Focusing on the meaning or significance of contemporary tourism, it is argued that tourism is a sacred journey, a secular spiritual experience; in other words, tourism has become a secular alternative to the institution of religion, the contemporary tourist a modern, secular pilgrim. Hence, a conceptual divide exists in the relationship between tourism and spirituality, between spiritual (religious) tourism and tourism as spirituality (religion).  Moreover, that divide is evidenced in much of the extant research into tourism, religion and spirituality.                 As this paper suggests, however, such a conceptual divide over-simplifies the relationship between tourism and spirituality; not only is the distinction between spiritual / religious tourism and tourism as a secular spiritual experience becoming increasing fuzzy – some traditional religious travel experiences, for example, are taking on the aura of commoditised tourism products, with implications for the experience of participants themselves – but also the relationship can be viewed from different disciplinary and theoretical positions. A humanistic perspective, for example, questions the notion of spirituality itself, whilst varying interpretations of religion / spirituality also cast the relationship in different lights. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to explore the complexity of the spiritual dimension of tourism. Reviewing the extant literature, it highlights the dimensions of and limits to research into the relationship between tourism and spirituality and, exploring the phenomenon from a variety of perspectives, challenges contemporary understandings and points to areas demanding further research.