Humanitarian actions of a cultural center during the Covid-19 pandemic: an analogy with supply chain business processes

PurposeThis study intends to map the supply chain and characterize the business processes of a cultural center in an aggregated and coordinated operation to serve families in need during the Covid-19 pandemic. This case study analyzes distinct aspects of humanitarian management capable of contributing to the management of commercial supply chains.Design/methodology/approachAdopting a case study approach, this research contextualizes the view on humanitarian supply chains related to the importance of participating organizations' engagement and the relationship and similarity with business organizations.FindingsThe study presents the model adopted to undertake the aid operations, maps the cultural center's humanitarian supply chain, clarifies the relationships and operations developed and compares the business processes with those of commercial chains. Possibilities and initiatives are discussed that can contribute to business organizations' greater engagement in humanitarian actions.Research limitations/implicationsRestricted to one case involving the cultural center and the other agents researched, the information and considerations are limited, and any generalization should be treated with caution.Practical implicationsThe study is a practical example that clarifies how business organizations can engage in the supply chain of humanitarian institutions. It also illustrates ways to help these institutions improve their fund-raising initiatives.Social implicationsThis study is justified by the representativeness of humanitarian actions in critical periods such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The study also presents potential ways to contribute to operations of this nature and to encourage business organizations to improve participation in humanitarian movements.Originality/valueMany studies on the subject have highlighted the importance of comparing humanitarian and business supply chains through real case research.

Implementation Of ‘Mudharabah’ Contracts And Their Impacts On Fund-Raising Products In Jambi Sharia Banking

Funds with the ‘mudharabah’ principle are investment funds so that Islamic banks share the proceeds only to the owners of funds that use the ‘mudharabah’ principle. The collection of funds is applied to savings and deposit products that use ‘mudharabah’ contracts. The amount of income received by the owner of the ‘mudharabah’ fund is part of the income received in cash from the distribution of funds by Islamic banks. Therefore, the funds collected with the ‘mudharabah’ principle are one of the elements in calculating profit sharing. The problem raised in the research is how to implement the ‘mudharabah’ contract and its impact on fund-raising products in Islamic banking. Two main things affect the quality or results of research: the quality of research instruments and the quality of data collection. The quality of research instruments relates to the validity and reliability of the instruments and the quality of data collection regarding the accuracy of the methods used to collect data. Therefore, an instrument tested for validity and reliability may not necessarily produce valid and reliable data if the instrument is not appropriately used in collecting data. The type of research was the quantitative technique used through interviews, observations, and documentation. In analyzing the data obtained, the authors used descriptive techniques. The results showed that applying ‘mudharabah’ contracts to fund-raising products at Islamic banks is only applied to savings and deposit products, and the advantages of products that use ‘mudharabah’ contracts are basically to make it easier for customers to transact. These products can be used as financing guarantees. There are supporting and inhibiting factors in the products that use ‘mudharabah’ contracts. These supporting factors include the existence of Islamic sharia principles, which are used as a reference for implementing a profit-sharing system on all products, especially savings and deposit products, and the existence of infrastructure facilities within the company that are pretty complete. Meanwhile, the inhibiting factors include the lack of socialization regarding Islamic banks' existence. Abstrak: Dana dengan prinsip 'mudharabah' adalah dana investasi sehingga bank syariah membagi hasil hanya kepada pemilik dana yang menggunakan prinsip 'mudharabah'. Penghimpunan dana diterapkan pada tabungan dan deposito dengan akad mudharabah. Besarnya pendapatan yang diterima oleh pemilik dana mudharabah merupakan bagian dari pendapatan yang diterima secara tunai dari penyaluran dana oleh bank syariah. Oleh karena itu, dana yang dihimpun dengan prinsip 'mudharabah' menjadi salah satu unsur dalam menghitung bagi hasil. Masalah yang diangkat dalam penelitian ini adalah bagaimana penerapan akad mudharabah dan dampaknya terhadap penghimpunan dana di perbankan syariah. Dua hal utama yang mempengaruhi kualitas atau hasil penelitian: kualitas instrumen penelitian dan kualitas pengumpulan data. Kualitas instrumen penelitian berkaitan dengan validitas dan reliabilitas instrumen serta kualitas pengumpulan data mengenai ketepatan metode yang digunakan untuk mengumpulkan data. Jenis penelitian yang digunakan adalah teknik kuantitatif melalui wawancara, observasi, dan dokumentasi. Dalam menganalisis data yang diperoleh, penulis menggunakan teknik deskriptif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penerapan akad mudharabah pada produk penghimpunan dana di bank syariah hanya berlaku pada produk tabungan dan deposito, dan keunggulan produk yang menggunakan akad mudharabah pada dasarnya adalah untuk memudahkan nasabah dalam bertransaksi. Produk-produk ini dapat digunakan sebagai jaminan pembiayaan. Ada faktor pendukung dan penghambat dalam produk yang menggunakan akad mudharabah. Faktor pendukung tersebut antara lain adanya prinsip syariah Islam yang dijadikan acuan penerapan sistem bagi hasil pada semua produk khususnya produk tabungan dan deposito, serta adanya sarana prasarana di dalam perusahaan yang cukup lengkap. Sedangkan faktor penghambatnya antara lain kurangnya sosialisasi tentang keberadaan bank syariah. Kata-kata kunci: mudharabah, implementasi, dampak, produk penghimpunan dana, perbankan syariah.

Econometric Approach to Assessing the Transfer Fees and Values of Professional Football Players

Billions of euros are invested every year by professional football clubs for the recruitment of players. How do market actors decide prices? This paper presents an econometric model unveiling the key factors coming into play in determining fees on the transfer market for professional football (soccer) players. The statistical technique used to build the model is multiple linear regression (MLR), with fees paid by clubs as an independent variable. The sample comprises over 2000 transactions of players transferred for money from clubs in the five major European leagues during the period stretching from July 2012 to November 2021. This paper notably highlights the importance of taking into consideration the remaining duration of contracts binding players with the club to which they belong, a factor often neglected in the existing literature. It also shows that a statistical model can explain over 80% of the differences in the transfer fees paid for players. This paper reveals various applications of the approach developed for the football industry to both assess and predict football players’ transfer fees and values: transfer negotiations, club sales or purchases, bank credit, fund raising, financial planning and communication, legal disputes, etc.

Early life infection and proinflammatory, atherogenic metabolomic and lipidomic profiles at 12 months of age: a population-based cohort study

BackgroundThe risk of adult onset cardiovascular and metabolic (cardiometabolic) disease accrues from early life. Infection is ubiquitous in infancy and induces inflammation, a key cardiometabolic risk factor, but the relationship between infection, inflammation, and metabolic profiles in early childhood remains unexplored. We investigated relationships between infection and plasma metabolomic and lipidomic profiles at age 12 months, and mediation of these associations by inflammation.MethodsMatched infection, metabolomics and lipidomics data were generated from 555 infants in a pre-birth longitudinal cohort. Infection data from birth to 12 months were parent-reported (total infections at age 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months), inflammation markers (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, hsCRP); glycoprotein acetyls GlycA) were quantified at 12 months. Metabolic profiles were 12-month plasma nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics (228 metabolites) and liquid-chromatography/mass-spectrometry lipidomics (776 lipids). Associations were evaluated with multivariable linear regression models.ResultsFrequent infant infections were associated with adverse metabolomic (elevated inflammation markers, triglycerides, phenylalanine, and lower HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein A1, and omega-3 fatty acids) and lipidomic profiles (elevated phosphatidylethanolamines and lower hexosylceramides, trihexosylceramides, and cholesteryl esters). Similar, more marked, profiles were observed with higher GlycA, but not hsCRP. GlycA, but not hsCRP, mediated a substantial proportion of the relationship between infection and metabolome/lipidome.ConclusionsInfants with a greater infection burden from birth to 12 months had pro-inflammatory and pro-atherogenic plasma metabolomic/lipid profiles, indicative of heightened risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes in adults. These findings suggest potentially modifiable pathways linking early life infection and inflammation with subsequent cardiometabolic risk.FundingThe establishment work and infrastructure for the BIS was provided by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), Deakin University and Barwon Health. Subsequent funding was secured from National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC), The Shepherd Foundation, The Jack Brockhoff Foundation, the Scobie & Claire McKinnon Trust, the Shane O’Brien Memorial Asthma Foundation, the Our Women’s Our Children’s Fund Raising Committee Barwon Health, the Rotary Club of Geelong, the Minderoo Foundation, the Ilhan Food Allergy Foundation, GMHBA, Vanguard Investments Australia Ltd, and the Percy Baxter Charitable Trust, Perpetual Trustees. In-kind support was provided by the Cotton on Foundation and CreativeForce. The study sponsors were not involved in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing of the report; or the decision to submit the report for publication. Research at MCRI is supported by the Victorian Government’s Operational Infrastructure Support Program. This work was also supported by NHMRC Senior Research Fellowships (1008396 to ALP; 1064629 to DB; 1045161 to RS), NHMRC Investigator Grants to ALP (1110200) and DB (1175744), NHMRC-A*STAR project grant (1149047). TM is supported by an MCRI ECR Fellowship. SB is supported by the Dutch Research Council (452173113).

The Application of Fiduciary Guarantee in the Perspective of Islamic Law

The development of economic activity in the world has an impact on the development of people's quality of life, thus increasing the need for funding to meet these needs. In addition, the majority of Indonesian people who are Muslim automatically bring Islamic law into their daily life in various fields, including in economic activities. Fiduciary guarantees are possible in a murabahah contract if the financing company acts as a seller (trader) who sells goods on credit to consumers, so not as a provider of funds that owes to consumers. Fund-raising activities to support business activities in the community are closely related to credit matters, the consequence is the need for a guarantee or known as fiduciary. Fiduciary guarantees are conventional products that are set to provide protection for creditors, especially if the debtor defaults. Fiduciary guarantees, which cannot be fully applied to all financial institution systems in Indonesia, need to be studied several times, especially in the view of the Islamic religion that uses the sharia financial system. The focus of the study that is used as the formulation of the problem is What is the current position of the application of fiduciary guarantees in Indonesia? and how to apply fiduciary guarantee according to the perspective of Islamic law?. The results of the study show that the practice of implementing fiduciary in Indonesia has a very important position and must be fulfilled by financing service providers. Meanwhile, according to the Islamic view, there is no fiduciary guarantee in the aspects of Islamic law but the matter of guarantees can be equated with rahn. Thus, in Islamic Financial Institutions guided by rahn as a guarantee system for lending and borrowing activities in accordance with Islamic law, this is based on the word of Allah QS. Al-Baqarah verse 283 and Act No. 21 of 2008 concerning Islamic Banking.

Framing the startup accelerator through assemblage theory: A case study of an intensive hub in Indonesia

This article presents how assemblage theory, as taken from Deleuze and Guattari, can be used to understand the intensive approaches of startup accelerators in supporting startup companies. Through a study of a startup accelerator in Jakarta, Indonesia, we present three snapshots to exemplify manifestations of what we argue as the accelerator’s “ seed accelerator” form of content and “ seed funding” form of expression as well as their reciprocal presupposition to demonstrate the multiplicity of assemblage as the organizational principles of the accelerator. Employing the tenets of formalization and territorialization from assemblage theory to analyze the results, this article shows that the “ seed accelerator” form of content is manifested by way of how the accelerator’s bodies of its human elements, activities, events, and infrastructure relate and interconnect throughout the accelerator’s 12-week program towards its end point, that is, fulfilling the stakes for the Final Demo-Day, while, on the other hand, the “ seed funding” form of expression is manifested by way of the usage of terms related to fund-raising, expressions of worry, and the expectations of the hub management and the VC in preparing the startups for the next level of funding. Moreover, we argue that the formalized function of the accelerator assemblage is to intensively seed scalable startups. This assemblage analysis thus offers an interrelational perspective regarding startup accelerators, and demonstrates the value of formalization and territorialization in assemblage theory to understand the programming arrangements in a startup accelerator.

Intelligent Application of Artificial Intelligence Internet of Things Technology in the Economic and Legal Fields

In today’s globalized situation, people on the one hand enjoy the great convenience brought by the Internet and artificial intelligence Internet of Things (IoT) technology, and, on the other hand, they are also inevitably subject to a series of harms brought by network technology. Internet economic crime is a new type of crime based on Internet technology. Criminals use Internet technology to conduct illegal visits and Trojan horse program attacks, steal user information, and defraud victims of money. This has resulted in the people’s personal and property safety and social harmony and stability. Strictly cracking down on cyber economic crimes in accordance with the law is of great significance to safeguarding the interests of the people and maintaining social stability. However, as the methods and forms of cyber economic crimes emerge endlessly, it is very important to collect intelligence information on such crimes. This paper proposes using the sensor technology, embedded system technology, radio frequency automatic identification technology, and cloud computing technology in artificial intelligence Internet of Things technology to design and build a data-mining-based network economic crime intelligent information aggregation collection system to realize network economic crime intelligence of aggregation and analyze and help combat cyber economic crimes. This article takes cyber economic crime cases in various cities in our province as an example, selects 9 cyber economic criminals’ intelligence information as sample data, and tests and applies the designed cyber economic crime intelligence information system. The final results show that the numbers of cyber economic crime cases in four cities A, B, C, and D in four provinces are roughly the same, but city A has the largest number; the minimum confidence of the 9 criminals is above 0.60, indicating that the economic crimes of cyber economic criminals are related to their academic background and family status and criminal history are related to a certain extent; illegal fund-raising fraud and online credit card fraud account for the largest proportion of the four cities and are currently the main forms of online economic crime.

ТРАДИЦИИ СТРАННИЧЕСТВА И ХРАМОПОПЕЧЕНИЕ: НА МАТЕРИАЛАХ ВОЛОГОДСКОЙ ГУБЕРНИИ ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ XIX – НАЧАЛА XX ВЕКА

В статье на архивных и этнографических материалах Вологодской губ. рассказывается о месте и роли странничества в деле храмопопечения. Само храмопопечение в крестьянском сообществе представляло собой заботу об устройстве храма – его внешнем и внутреннем благолепии, а также отношение к нему, бытующее в крестьянской среде во второй половине XIX – начале XX в., и все виды и формы коммуникаций, вызванные этим отношением. Сбор доброхотных подаяний для нужд храма являлся частью индивидуальных форм храмопопечения и органичной частью странничества. В статье прослеживается, как происходила организация сборов на храм внутри приходского сообщества, какую роль в ней исполняли священнослужители, какими качествами обладали сами сборщики и что являлось мотивами для участия в данной практике храмопопечения. Сборщики на храм иногда собирали средства без разрешения епархиального начальства, выпадали из церковной нормативности, но при этом полностью соответствовали пониманию крестьянами истинного благочестия. Несмотря на стремление церкви регулировать данный вид попечения, оно было ярким проявлением крестьянской религиозности. В статье можно увидеть, что странничество в крестьянской среде было бы невозможно без таких явлений крестьянской жизни, как странноприимство, идеи милосердия и представления о храме как о сакральном центре крестьянской общины. The article on the archival and ethnographic materials of the Vologda province tells about the place and the role of wandering in the matter of church care. The care of the church itself in the peasant community was a concern for the structure of the church – its external and internal splendor, as well as the attitude towards it that existed in the peasant environment in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries and all types and forms of communication caused by this attitude. Collecting voluntary alms for the needs of the temple was part of individual forms of church care and an organic part of wandering. The article notes how the church fund-raising had organized within the parish community, what role the clergy played in it, what qualities the collectors themselves possessed, and what were the motives for participating in this practice of temple care. Canvassers sometimes raised funds for the church without the permission of the diocesan authorities, which fell out of church standards, but at the same time fully corresponded to the peasants’ understanding of true piety. Despite the desire of the church to regulate this type of care, it was a vivid manifestation of peasant religiosity. It can be seen in the article that wandering among the peasant environment would have been impossible without such a phenomenon of peasant life as hospitality, the idea of mercy, and the idea of the temple as the sacred center of the peasant community.

Adopting the Hirschman–Herfindahl Index to estimate the financial sustainability of Vietnamese public universities

Over several decades, the Vietnamese government has increasingly cut its investment in the public higher education system and has also introduced a cost-sharing mechanism. Under this scheme, Vietnamese public universities have been seeking other sources of revenue. Despite the bold emphasis on the need for revenue diversification in higher education in Vietnam, there is little empirical evidence of the status quo of Vietnamese public higher education finance. The purpose of this paper was to fill this research gap by using the Hirschman–Herfindahl Index to estimate the degree of financial diversity in 51 public universities in Vietnam between 2015 and 2017. Our findings revealed that all institutions in this study were unsustainable due to their weak financial diversity. Suggestions for policy makers and university leaders that may enhance financial sustainability include the adoption of performance-based financial allocations and the implementation of capacity-building programs for universities with regard to fund-raising and entrepreneurship skills.