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Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the most important factors that affect the capital structure of commercial banks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Design/methodology/approach This study uses annual data of 11 Saudi commercial, national banks listed on the tadawul Saudi stock exchange for the period 2010–2017. Data was collected from the banks financial statements, tadawul annual publications and Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority. By constructing a balanced panel, this study uses pooled ordinary least squares regression along with fixed effects and random effects to examine the relationship between the bank’s book leverage as the dependent variable and bank-specific explanatory variables that include profitability, tangibility, earnings volatility, growth opportunities and bank size, while controlling for macroeconomic conditions. Findings The findings of this study suggest that banks in Saudi Arabia are highly leveraged, endorsing the fact that the nature of banks’ business is different from non-banking firms. Earnings volatility, growth and bank size show positive and significant relations with book leverage. Profitability and tangibility are negatively related to the book leverage. Empirically, the explanatory variables profitability, earnings volatility, tangibility, growth and bank size have material effects on the capital structure decisions of Saudi commercial banks. In summary, the determinants of capital structure for Saudi banks are the same as those of non-financial firms but are distinctive in nature. Research limitations/implications An extensive study on all the banks operating in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is suggested. Practical implications The findings have practical implications for bank managers, which will help them to identify the bank-specific factors affecting the capital structure and choose the values enhancing optimal capital structure. The results of this study can assist regulatory agencies to formulate an effective regulatory framework. Moreover, the findings lay a foundation for the development of financial sector under the umbrella of the Vision 2030 program in the Kingdom. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the factors affecting the capital structure choices of commercial banks operating in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the findings of the study would prove useful in detailed studies of capital structure in the GCC countries as well.

Mangroves are an important ecosystem-based protection against cyclonic storm surge. As the surge moves through the mangrove forest, the tree roots, trunks, and leaves obstruct the flow of water. Damage to adjacent coastal lands is attenuated mainly by reducing (i) surge height, which determines the area and depth of inundation and (ii) water flow velocity. But the extent of mangrove protection depends on the density of tree plantings and the diameter of trunks and roots, along with an array of other forest characteristics (e.g., floor shape, bathymetry, spectral features of waves, and tidal stage at which waves enter the forest). Making efficient use of mangroves’ protective capacity has been hindered by a lack of location-specific information. This study helps to fill that gap by estimating reduction in storm surge height and water flow velocity from mangroves at selected sites in cyclone-prone, coastal Bangladesh. A hydrodynamic model for the Bay of Bengal, based on the MIKE21FM system, was run multiple times to simulate the surge of cyclone Sidr (2007) at the Barisal coast. Estimates of surge height and water flow velocity were recorded first without mangroves and then with mangroves of various forest widths and planting densities, including specific information on local topography, bathymetry, and Manning’s coefficients estimated from species’ root and trunk systems. The results show a significant reduction in water flow velocity (29–92%) and a modest reduction in surge height (4–16.5 cm). These findings suggest that healthy mangroves can contribute to significant savings in rehabilitation and maintenance costs by protecting embankments from breaching, toe-erosion, and other damage.

Vaccine willingness among the mass populace, as well as their proper knowledge and perception regarding vaccines and the vaccination process, may contribute extensively towards attaining their anticipated vaccination rates. The current study endeavored to ascertain the Bangladeshi population’s knowledge, perception, and willingness towards COVID-19 vaccination. Relevant information was collected from 1201 adults aged 18 years or older by employing an online-based survey from 1 to 30 July 2021. Descriptive statistics, the chi-square (χ2) test, and a binary logistic regression analysis were applied in order to compare the extent of knowledge and perception prevalent among different demographic groups and correlate such prevalence with respective vaccine willingness. The participants expressed mean (± standard deviation) knowledge and perception scores of 6.48 ± 1.13 out of 8 and 5.37 ± 1.22 out of 7, respectively. A multivariate analysis confirmed the significant association (p < 0.05) of gender, age, and family income with the knowledge score, whereas age and knowledge level significantly influenced perception. Current living area, family income, and age were considerable contributors to COVID-19 vaccine willingness. Overall vaccine willingness was found to be significantly curtailed by inadequate knowledge (AOR 0.514, CI 95% 0.401–0.658, p < 0.001) and perception (AOR 0.710, CI 95% 0.548–0.920, p = 0.010) among the participants. All of the concerned authorities’ efforts are warranted in order to improve public understanding, perception, and inclination towards vaccination.

This work aims to efficiently capture CO2 on two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures for effective cleaning of our atmosphere and purification of exhausts coming from fuel engines. Here, we have performed extensive first principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) to investigate the interaction of CO2 on a recently synthesized ZnO monolayer (ZnO-ML) in its pure, defected and functionalized form. A series of rigorous calculations yielded the most preferential binding configurations of the CO2 gas molecule on a ZnO-ML. It is observed that the substitution of one oxygen atom with boron, carbon and nitrogen on the ZnO monolayer resulted into enhanced CO2 adsorption. Our calculations show an enriched adsorption of CO2 on the ZnO-ML when substituting with foreign atoms like B, C and N. The improved adsorption energy of CO2 on ZnO suggests the ZnO-ML could be a promising candidate for future CO2 capture.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of Islamic microfinance services (IMFS) on women’s empowerment in rural Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a multi-stage sampling technique. The primary data are collected through a face-to-face survey of 389 women respondents who have received IMFS from the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited. Cronbach’s alpha test is conducted to test the reliability and internal consistency of collected data. Paired-sample tests, logit regression and proportion hypothesis tests are conducted to measure the impact of IMFS on women’s empowerment. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used to interpret the data. Findings The study reveals that IMFS have led to structural transformation in the occupation dynamics of the respondents’ families from agriculture to retail businesses. IMFS have had a significant positive impact on household income, savings and expenditure; have improved standard of living and human capital formation; and have enhanced all three dimensions of empowerment, namely, economic empowerment, socio-cultural empowerment (SCEM) and familial empowerment (FLEM). Of them, economic and SCEM have positively contributed toward overall women’s empowerment, while FLEM has a negative but insignificant impact on overall empowerment. The respondents’ perception also supports the finding that IMFS have benefited rural women and empowered them. Originality/value The study is based on primary data. It leads to an inquiry as to whether women are dominant in familial affairs. If so, it may reduce the state of happiness and overall women’s empowerment. There is a clear gap in the existing literature about this inquiry.

This paper investigates the nexus between energy consumption and economic growth in Bangladesh over the period 1971–2018 using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration. The main contribution of this study is the inclusion of exogenous dynamic (globalisation) and endogenous factor (political risk indicator measured by political terror scale (PTS)) to the energy consumption–economic growth nexus. The study explores an energy consumption–economic growth nexus where globalisation and PTS have both positive and negative influences on this relationship in the short run and long run. The Toda–Yamamoto Granger causality test confirms the feedback hypothesis, that is bidirectional causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth, and the result is further verified by the impulse response function. Therefore, policymakers should enhance the availability of energy for people and industries to continue the existing momentum of economic growth. Besides, the government should cautiously deal with both the globalisation and political risk issues about energy consumption–economic growth nexus in Bangladesh.

The increased need to gather scientific data and the renewed drive to explore underwater natural resources has led more and more researchers to study the underwater environment. This has resulted in enormous attention being given to Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) all over the world. However, UWSNs are faced with some major challenges including harsh environment, higher propagation delay, and limited battery power of the sensor nodes. To address these challenges, several routing schemes have been proposed. In this paper, we propose a routing strategy, called Reliable Path Selection and Opportunistic Routing (RPSOR) for UWSNs, which is a significantly improved version of Weighting Depth and Forwarding Area Division Depth Based Routing (WDFAD-DBR). RPSOR is based on three main factors: Advancement factor (ADV f), which depends on the depth of current as well as next hop forwarding node; Reliability index (REL i), which depends on the energy of the current forwarder as well as average energy in the next expected forwarding region; and Shortest Path Index (SP i), which is calculated on the basis of number of hops to the sink and average depth of neighbors in the next expected hop. To deal with the void hole problem and improve the Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), we follow the more reliable path towards the sink by calculating REL i for a node. At the end, we perform extensive simulations and compare our proposed scheme with WDFAD-DBR, the results of which prove that RPSOR shows better performance in terms of PDR and energy tax in comparison to WDFAD-DBR. However, the proposed work compromises end-to-end delay in sparse networks. INDEX TERMS Underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs), reliability, potential forwarding nodes (PFNs), end-to-end delay (E2ED), packet delivery ratio (PDR), priority function (PF), void hole.