Psychologically complicated by nature, anxiety refers to feelings of worry, fear, or apprehension. Several research studies have been devoted to exploring anxiety's effects on language skills, including writing. Since foreign language anxiety directly influences a learner's motivation and determination to learn that language, it is imperative to study the findings and reasons behind these anxious feelings. One-third of foreign language learners have been experiencing at least a moderate level of anxiety. Researchers have attempted to investigate the causes of anxiety among foreign language pre-service teachers. The present study objectifies two goals to determine the extent of writing anxiety, followed by reasons and references to the role of gender. Seventy-two pre-service teachers of the English language training department from the University of Education, Multan, Pakistan, were selected for the study using convenience sampling. Second language writing anxiety inventory (SLWAI) and second language writing anxiety reasons inventory (SLWARI) were used to collect data, and semi-structured interviews were taken with students. The findings presented no difference in anxiety levels between genders, whereas cognitive anxiety type was distinctive in results. Most of the participants experienced high and medium levels of anxiety.
Mining activities in the Chini Lake catchment area have been extensive for several years, contributing to acid mine drainage (AMD) events with high concentrations of iron (Fe) and other heavy metals impacting the surface water. However, during the restriction period due to the COVID-19 outbreak, anthropogenic activities have been suspended, which clearly shows a good opportunity for a better environment. Therefore, we aimed to analyze the variation of AMD-associated water pollution in three main zones of the Chini Lake catchment area using Sentinel-2 data for the periods pre-movement control order (MCO), during MCO, and post-MCO from 2019 to 2021. These three zones were chosen due to their proximity to mining areas: zone 1 in the northeastern part, zone 2 in the southeastern part, and zone 3 in the southern part of the Chini Lake area. The acid mine water index (AMWI) was a specific index used to estimate acid mine water. The AMWI values from Sentinel-2 images exhibited that the mean AMWI values in all zones during the MCO period decreased by 14% compared with the pre-MCO period. The spatiotemporal analysis found that the highest polluted zones were recorded in zone 1, followed by zone 3 and zone 2. As compared with during the MCO period, the maximum percentage of increment during post-MCO in all zones was up to 25%. The loosened restriction policy has resulted in more AMD flowing into surface water and increased pollution in Chini Lake. As a whole, our outputs revealed that Sentinel-2 data had a major potential for assessing the AMD-associated pollution of water.
microRNAs (miRNAs) are well known as major players in mammalian and plant genetic systems that act by regulating gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. These tiny molecules can regulate target genes (mRNAs) through either cleavage or translational inhibition. Recently, the discovery of plant-derived miRNAs showing cross-kingdom abilities to regulate mammalian gene expression has prompted exciting discussions among researchers. After being acquired orally through the diet, plant miRNAs can survive in the digestive tract, enter the circulatory system, and regulate endogenous mRNAs. Here, we review current knowledge regarding the cross-kingdom mechanisms of plant miRNAs, related controversies, and potential applications of these miRNAs in dietary therapy, which will provide new insights for plant miRNA investigations related to health issues in humans.
Versatile nature of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) has made them an imperative nanomaterial being employed in nanomedicine. Various physical, chemical, and biological methodologies are in use for the preparation of CuO NPs. The physicochemical and biological properties of CuO NPs are primarily affected by their method of fabrication; therefore, selectivity of a synthetic technique is immensely important that makes these NPs appropriate for a specific biomedical application. The deliberate use of CuO NPs in biomedicine questions their biocompatible nature. For this reason, the present review has been designed to focus on the approaches employed for the synthesis of CuO NPs; their biomedical applications highlighting antimicrobial, anticancer, and antioxidant studies; and most importantly, the in vitro and in vivo toxicity associated with these NPs. This comprehensive overview of CuO NPs is unique and novel as it emphasizes on biomedical applications of CuO NPs along with its toxicological assessments which would be useful in providing core knowledge to researchers working in these domains for planning and conducting futuristic studies. KEY POINTS: • The recent methods for fabrication of CuO nanoparticles have been discussed with emphasis on green synthesis methods for different biomedical approaches. • Antibacterial, antioxidant, anticancer, antiparasitic, antidiabetic, and antiviral properties of CuO nanoparticles have been explained. • In vitro and in vivo toxicological studies of CuO nanoparticles exploited along with their respective mechanisms.
It is devastating to people's mental and emotional health to be exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the multifaceted response strategies are required to curb it. As a result of social distancing and self-isolation, people have faced many challenges in their lives. The suffering is even greater at the workplace where the employees are working with the fear of getting exposed to the virus and its new variants which is adversely affecting their wellbeing. This study explores and tests a model that extends the wellbeing research across organizational settings and targets the crucial factors that lead to job performance improvement even in the post pandemic COVID-19 situation. To improve both in-role performance and extra-role performance behaviors in the Pakistan banking sector, organizational virtue (also known as organizational virtuousness) and internal virtue (also known as emotional intelligence) are examined. Data were collected from the 416 bank employees using disproportionate stratified sampling technique. In the bank sector of Pakistan, wellbeing was identified as the key psychological factor that relates the in-role performance and extra-role performance to internal and organizational factors. Research findings also determined that conceptualizing subjective wellbeing in the context of work is more meaningful in understanding its relationship with the workplace variables than the general or global subjective wellbeing.
The current study investigates the dynamic relationship between structural changes, real GDP per capita, energy consumption, trade openness, population density, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions within the EKC framework over a period 1971-2013. The study used the autoregressive distributed lagged (ARDL) approach to investigate the long-run relationship between the selected variables. The study also employed the dynamic ordinary least squared (DOLS) technique to obtain the robust long-run estimates. Moreover, the causal relationship between the variables is explored using the VECM Granger causality test. Empirical results reveal a negative relationship between structural change and CO2 emissions in the long run. The results indicate a positive relationship between energy consumption, trade openness, and CO2 emissions. The study applied the turning point formula of Itkonen (2012) rather than the conventional formula of the turning point. The empirical estimates of the study do not support the presence of the EKC relationship between income and CO2 emissions. The Granger causality test indicates the presence of long-run bidirectional causality between energy consumption, structural change, and CO2 emissions in the long run. Economic growth, openness to trade, and population density unidirectionally cause CO2 emissions. These results suggest that the government should focus more on information-based services rather than energy-intensive manufacturing activities. The feedback relationship between energy consumption and CO2 emissions suggests that there is an ominous need to refurbish the energy-related policy reforms to ensure the installations of some energy-efficient modern technologies.
Globalization persists the tendency to alter numerous aspects of today's world including religion, transport, language, living styles, and international relations; however, its potential to influence quality of environment is the prime concern for trade and environmental policies guidelines (Audi and Ali 2018). In response to the growing interest for identifying the dynamic relationship between globalization and environmental performance, the present study seeks to investigate the critical link between globalization and ecological footprints in top 15 globalized countries between 1970 and 2016. Applying the novel methods of quantile-on-quantile regression (QQ) and Granger causality in quantiles, the findings examine the manners in which quantiles of globalization affect the quantiles of ecological footprints and vice versa. The empirical results suggest that globalization has a long-term positive effect on ecological footprint and vice versa in case of Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Canada, and Portugal. On the other hand, the estimated results indicate a negative effect between globalization and ecological footprint in the case of France, Germany, the UK, and Hungary. These results extend the recent findings on the globalization-environment nexus implying that the magnitude of relationship among both variables varies with countries demanding individual focus and cautions for postulating environmental and trade policies.
A key objective of renewable energy development in the USA is to reduce CO2 emissions by decreasing reliance on fossil fuels in the coming decades. Using quantile-on-quantile regressions, this research examines the relationship between disaggregated sources of renewable energy (biomass, biofuel, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, wind, wood, and waste) and CO2 emissions in the USA during the period from 1995 to 2017. Our findings support the deployment of various types of renewables in combating CO2 emissions for each quantile. In particular, a negative effect of renewable energy consumption on CO2 emissions is observed for the lower quantiles in almost all types of renewables. The effect of all the renewable energy sources taken together is significant for the lower and upper quantiles of the provisional distribution of CO2 emissions. The effect of renewable energy becomes stronger and more significant in the middle quantiles, where a pronounced causal effect of return and volatility is detected for the lower and upper middle quantiles. At the same time, heterogeneity in the findings across various types of renewable energy sources reveals differences in the relative importance of each type within the energy sector taken as a whole. Future US initiatives in renewable energy deployment at both the federal and the state levels should take into consideration the relative importance of each type, so as to maximize the efficacy of renewable energy policies in combating CO2 emissions.
Water is an essential component of agriculture-food production. As the biomass and biofuel are known excellent sources of renewable and sustainable energy, cultivating process consumes significant quantities of water. Without sufficient, good-quality and easily accessible water, the European agriculture-food production could thus be under threat. This research analyses the impact of the water supply on the bioenergy production in the 28 European Union countries, for the 1990-2018 period within the pathway of the European Union 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The findings using the generalised least squares (GLS) technique show that bioenergy production and population density appear to decrease water supply. Precisely, the magnitude of the effects is - 0.224 and - 0.136 for developing countries and developed countries in the EU, respectively. This indicates that a serious reduction of water security is more likely to happen in developed countries than in developing countries as a result of the increase in bioenergy consumption. In the meantime, fossil fuel, income generation activities and institutional quality have already positively affected water supply. Thus, these findings implied that water scarcity is becoming one of the main obstacles for bioenergy expansion and growth. The results were also further verified by the random effect and pooled oriented least squares method. This study recommends that the Member of the European Union States should continue to increase bioenergy production in the energy mix efforts without any strenuous water security issues. Notwithstanding, there are several situations where a developing bioenergy industry is unlikely to be constrained by water shortage, and with the drive of bioenergy demand, the efforts might unlock new opportunities to adapt to water-related challenges and to improve water usage efficiencies. The authorities should illustrate organised water security and sustainable bioenergy policy by way of developing alternative strategies in reducing fossil fuel power and related CO2 emissions, accordingly to the unique characteristics of both developed and developing countries in the EU.
The objective of the study is to examine the impact of environmental indicators and air pollution on "health" and "wealth" for the low-income countries. The study used a number of promising variables including arable land, fossil fuel energy consumption, population density, and carbon dioxide emissions that simultaneously affect the health (i.e., health expenditures per capita) and wealth (i.e., GDP per capita) of the low-income countries. The general representation for low-income countries has shown by aggregate data that consist of 39 observations from the period of 1975-2013. The study decomposes the data set from different econometric tests for managing robust inferences. The study uses temporal forecasting for the health and wealth model by a vector error correction model (VECM) and an innovation accounting technique. The results show that environment and air pollution is the menace for low-income countries' health and wealth. Among environmental indicators, arable land has the largest variance to affect health and wealth for the next 10-year period, while air pollution exerts the least contribution to change health and wealth of low-income countries. These results indicate the prevalence of war situation, where environment and air pollution become visible like "gun" and "bullet" for low-income countries. There are required sound and effective macroeconomic policies to combat with the environmental evils that affect the health and wealth of the low-income countries.
Numerous mitigation techniques have been incorporated to capture or remove SO2 with flue gas desulfurization (FGD) being the most common method. Regenerative FGD method is advantageous over other methods due to high desulfurization efficiency, sorbent regenerability, and reduction in waste handling. The capital costs of regenerative methods are higher than those of commonly used once-through methods simply due to the inclusion of sorbent regeneration while operational and management costs depend on the operating hours and fuel composition. Regenerable sorbents like ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, ammonium halide solutions, alkyl-aniline solutions, amino acid solutions, activated carbons, mesoporous silica, zeolite, and metal-organic frameworks have been reported to successfully achieve high SO2 removal. The presence of other gases in flue gas, e.g., O2, CO2, NOx, and water vapor, and the reaction temperature critically affect the sorption capacity and sorbent regenerability. To obtain optimal SO2 removal performance, other parameters such as pH, inlet SO2 concentration, and additives need to be adequately governed. Due to its high removal capacity, easy preparation, non-toxicity, and low regeneration temperature, the use of deep eutectic solvents is highly feasible for upscale utilization. Metal-organic frameworks demonstrated highest reported SO2 removal capacity; however, it is not yet applicable at industrial level due to its high price, weak stability, and robust formulation.
The demand for high-quality safe and clean water supply has revolutionized water treatment technologies and become a most focused subject of environmental science. Water contamination generally marks the presence of numerous toxic and harmful substances. These contaminants such as heavy metals, organic and inorganic pollutants, oil wastes, and chemical dyes are discharged from various industrial effluents and domestic wastes. Among several water treatment technologies, the utilization of silica nanostructures has received considerable attention due to their stability, sustainability, and cost-effective properties. As such, this review outlines the latest innovative approaches for synthesis and application of silica nanostructures in water treatment, apart from exploring the gaps that limit their large-scale industrial application. In addition, future challenges for improved water remediation and water quality technologies are keenly discussed.
This research article aims to investigate the moderating role of financial development in Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) in the context of Malaysia for the period 1970-2016. As the time series variables are integrated of different order therefore, Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model has been employed to estimate the long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables. The results indicate that EKC does exist for Malaysia and financial development has negative impact on carbon emission. Moreover, financial development is found to have significant moderating impact on income environment relation. More financial development brings early turning point of the EKC. The results recommend that financial development can be used as one of the policy measures to reduce the environmental cost of economic growth in Malaysia.
The rapid increase in urbanization has given rise to the need of proper waste management. Within municipal waste, the plastic waste is a growing concern which is causing severe harm to our ecosystem. If ignored, this problem will have harmful effects on both human and wildlife. Therefore, this study aims to find out the factors that influence the recycling behavior patterns of consumers regarding plastic waste. The variables from the theory of planned behavior were adopted to study the behavior of consumers toward recycling plastic waste. The data was collected from 243 residents of Karachi-metropolitan city of Pakistan. The partial least square-structural equation modelling was applied to analyze the data. The findings of the current study reveal that different consumers' attributes and attitudes trigger different types of recycling behavior when it comes to waste disposal. Pressure from family and friends and perceived behavioral control trigger the behavior of reselling the waste plastic products while consumer's awareness of consequences and personal attitude toward proper waste disposal leads to reuse or donating that product to someone who can use that plastic product. The understanding of these consumer attributes may help to shape the behavioral outcomes in order to manage waste disposal. This study will be beneficial for business managers looking to improve reverse logistics as well as government/municipal policy makers and academics/researchers who are interested in a solution-oriented study.
In today's era, the world economy needs to move towards a green transformation. Green total factor productivity provides the judgment about a country or region's ability to achieve long-term sustainable development goals. However, many factors considerably affect green total factor productivity that needs to be explored and clarified. This panel study investigates the link between technological input, environmental policies, governmental involvement, manufacturing and logistics industry cooperation, renewable energy consumption, and green total factor productivity in the context of Chinese's manufacturing and logistics industry. Hypotheses are tested through fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) econometric technique. The study used 12 cities data mainly taken from China Urban Statistical Yearbook (2005-2019) and National Economic and Social Development Statistics Bulletin. The results indicate that technological input, environmental policies, governmental involvement, manufacturing and logistics industry cooperation, and renewable energy consumption are significantly linked to green total factor productivity. The result also implies that the factors mentioned above have a crucial role in the transformation process. Moreover, the current research results will help popularize green total factor productivity and provide a new starting point for reducing non-renewable energy consumption and environmental pollution.
For the purpose of this study, the role of technological innovation is examined. Few studies have examined empirically and theoretically the relationship between technological innovation and ecological footprint in conjunction with other factors, such as the human capital index and renewable energy sources, such as biofuels and nuclear power. This study examines the impact of technological innovation on G-7 countries' ecological footprints from 1990 to 2020. A cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) model is used in the study. The results of the study show that technological innovation minimizes the ecological footprint. A lower ecological footprint is also associated with increased usage of human capital and renewable energy. Depletion of the natural environment is a short-term and long-term consequence of increased GDP growth. Our results confirm that ecologically sustainable technology enhances the quality of the environment. Consistent panel causality results were achieved. In the context of the G-7 countries, our study's results could support the idea that there are new policy ideas that could help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 13).
Morocco is an energy-deficient country depending on almost 94% of energy imports to fuel its growing economy. Due to its fast-growing population, Morocco's energy consumption is projected to increase significantly, adding more pressure on the energy system. On the other hand, the rising tension of scarcity of resources, energy price fluctuations, and environmental issues have all made energy security one of its top priorities. Therefore, Morocco launched the National Energy Strategy (NES) in 2009 to reach 42% renewable generation by 2020, which was renewed to up to 52% by 2050. This study analyzes Morocco's energy security under the 4-As framework from 2000 to 2016.The 4-As methodology aims to assess and graphically illustrate the changes in Morocco's energy security by mapping these changes into four key dimensions: the availability of energy resources, the applicability of technology, the acceptability by the environment and society, and the affordability of energy resources. The quantitative analysis shows that Morocco's energy security performance was at its optimum during the first period of study (2000-2004) but then regressed for the remainder of the study period, as energy imports and prices increased, in addition to the low performance in applicability characterized by low energy efficiency. To improve Morocco's energy security status and move toward a sustainable energy transition, this study suggests integrating a higher share of renewable energy into the energy mix and boosting efficient technologies through a large scale of green finance and green investment projects.
Trade openness continues to have the potential to influence many parts of today's society, including religion, transportation, lifestyle, language, and international relations; however, its ability to impact environmental quality is the primary issue for environmental policy guidelines. In response to an increasing interest in finding the dynamic association between trade openness and environmental quality, the current study explores the trade openness- environmental quality nexus in the ten most open Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries for the years 1991 to 2018. By taking CO2 emissions and ecological footprint as environmental indicators, a novel methodology "quantile-on-quantile (QQ)" is used to indicate how different quantiles of trade openness asymmetrically affect the quantiles of environmental indicators by providing an adequate pattern to comprehend the overall dependence structure. A negative openness-CO2 emissions association is dominant in seven out of ten selected OIC countries (i.e., Suriname, Malaysia, Jordan, UAE, Libya, Brunei, and Qatar). On the other hand, a positive impact of trade openness on ecological footprint is dominant in eight out of ten selected OIC countries (i.e., Oman, Jordan, UAE, Libya, Bahrain, Brunei, Qatar, and Kuwait). The outcomes indicate that the asymmetric strength of openness-induced environmental quality differs with countries at both upper and bottom quantiles of data distribution that need specific attention in contending trade and environment policies in OIC countries.
Prior studies on environmental standards have highlighted the significance of urbanization and transportation in affecting environmental sustainability worldwide. As the empirical and theoretical debates are still unresolved and divisive, the argument of whether urbanization, transportation and economic growth in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries cause greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remains unclear. This study aim is to examine dynamic linkage between transportation, urbanization, economic growth and GHG emissions, as well as the impact of environmental regulations on GHG emission reduction in ASEAN countries over the years 1995-2018. On methodological aspects, the study accompanies a few environmental studies that check the cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity issues. Moreover, the new cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lags (CS-ARDL) methodology is also applied in the study to estimate the short-run and long-run effects of the factors on GHG emissions. Substantial evidence is provided that GHG emissions increase with transportation, urbanization and economic growth but decrease with the imposition of environmental-related taxations. Augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated effect mean group (CCEMG) also support the findings of CS-ARDL estimates. Finally, the study calls for drastic actions in ASEAN countries to reduce GHG emissions, including environmentally friendly transportation services and environmental regulation taxes. This study also provides the guidelines to the regulators while developing policies related to control the GHG emission in the country.
While the significance of cross-cultural research has been acknowledged over time, there remains a gap in understanding its relationship with employee outcomes. This study delves into the associations between organizational trust climate (TC) and job performance (JP), as well as turnover intention (TI), seeking to ascertain if work engagement (WE) plays a mediating role. Additionally, the research investigates potential differences in the mediating effect between China and Pakistan. Data gathered from 270 participants in China and 242 in Pakistan were subjected to structural equation modeling (SEM) for analysis. Findings indicated that perceptions of individual WE serve as a bridge between organizational TC and JP, with the effect on JP being notably stronger among the Chinese participants. Moreover, the mediating role of WE in the link between organizational TC and TI was more pronounced for the Pakistani participants. On a practical front, such insights can equip managers with a nuanced understanding of the ripple effect that a trust-infused environment can have on employee engagement, subsequently influencing performance and retention rates.