South Africa’s border posts are increasingly becoming crucial hubs for organized crime posing serious national and regional security implications with far-reaching consequences. The country’s national security, economic stability, and community safety are significantly jeopardised by organised criminal enterprises at border posts. As a result, the porous borders of South Africa have fostered an environment that is conducive to a variety of unlawful activities, such as the smuggling of drugs into the country and human trafficking. This paper seeks to identify political, economic, and social factors that lead to organised crime, corruption, and weak border management systems. The paper employed a secondary data analysis of existing scholarly articles, government reports as well as relevant case studies. The study found that local communities are most affected by illegal activities at the ports of entry. The findings further emphasize the importance of inclusive approaches in responding to security challenges that address cross-border flow regulation, fight corruption in service delivery, and promote community resilience. The paper concludes with recommendations for strengthening border controls towards enhancing cooperation between countries and curbing transnational crime networks.

This study aims to elucidate the impact of marketing investment dimensions (MTS, MTOE, ROMI) on profitability indicators (ROA, ROE, GPM, OPM) and sustainable growth indicators (SGR, ARG) for service companies. The study population consisted of 135 service companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange. A purposive sample of 55 companies was selected from this population. Financial reports and statements from 2018–2022 for these companies were analyzed to achieve the study objectives, employing appropriate statistical methods like multiple regression to test hypotheses. Previous literature shows conflicting results regarding the relationship between marketing investment dimensions and profitability/sustainable growth. Some studies found positive impacts, while others did not. This study contributes to this debate by providing statistical evidence. The results show that higher MTS, MTOE, and ROMI have a positive impact on SGR, OPM and ROA but a negative impact on GPM, ARG, and ROE. This underscores that marketing investments should be viewed in conjunction with overall operating expenses. Companies that control other expenses and increase the marketing investment proportion of total operating expenses may achieve better financial performance. Marketing investment metrics can serve as useful diagnostics and measures of effectiveness for improving marketing profitability, financial performance, and growth. In summary, this study statistically demonstrates the nuanced impacts of marketing investments on service company profitability and sustainable growth indicators. The results emphasize analyzing marketing spends in context of broader expenses and overall company financial health.

The purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidence about the relationship between Organizational Culture and Knowledge Management in public sector organizations in Colombia. This research is based on information obtained from a survey applied to workers in different positions and areas of four organizations in the Colombian government at the departmental level. A survey of 22 items measured Organizational Culture, and 19 items measured Knowledge Management. The results show that the strongest correlation is between a flexible organizational structure and leadership that foments the development of worker capabilities to register and use knowledge. Furthermore, to achieve efficiency the public organizations should foster adaptability to environment, a well-defined management and value-oriented human behavior and overcome barriers such as bureaucracy, inefficient administration, and make adequate knowledge management.

Heat removal has become an increasingly crucial issue for microelectronic chips due to increasingly high speed and high performance. One solution is to increase the thermal conductivity of the corresponding dielectrics. However, traditional approach to adding solid heat conductive nanoparticles to polymer dielectrics led to a significant weight increase. Here we propose a dielectric polymer filled with heat conductive hollow nanoparticles to mitigate the weight gain. Our mesoscale simulation of heat conduction through this dielectric polymer composite microstructure using the phase-field spectral iterative perturbation method demonstrates the simultaneous achievement of enhanced effective thermal conductivity and the low density. It is shown that additional heat conductivity enhancement can be achieved by wrapping the hollow nanoparticles with graphene layers. The underlying mesoscale mechanism of such a microstructure design and the quantitative effect of interfacial thermal resistance will be discussed. This work is expected to stimulate future efforts to develop light-weight thermal conductive polymer nanocomposites.

The development of entrepreneurship in fisheries operations is an important component of eliminating poverty. Fisherman obviously produce fishery goods, despite the broad recognition of the positive role that entrepreneurship can play in the reduction of poverty. Integration into one’s society and economy are increasingly beginning to be seen as an essential component of entrepreneurial success. This study aims to investigate the cultural and entrepreneurial attitudes of fishermen involved in the production of fishery products in the Province of West Sumatra, Indonesia, accordingly with a particular focus on marine resource conservation areas in village development. In this development, the descriptive design of capitals was utilized. This design included interviews, a questionnaire survey, and a review of the relevant body of literature. As a result, the purpose of the study was to propose an alternative model for the development of villages that would be considered novel in Indonesia. The findings demonstrated that the model makes a contribution to enhancing the socio-economic, cultural, and social capabilities of a group of fishermen. In conclusion, tourism that is focused on social entrepreneurship has the potential to boost entrepreneurial attitudes as well as the atmosphere surrounding community understanding of creative village development. We came to the conclusion that implementing tourism with a focus on social entrepreneurship could increase entrepreneurial attitudes and create an atmosphere that is more conscious of the needs of the community in village development.

The electoral campaign that led Trump to win the presidential election focused on attacking the elites and using nationalist rhetoric, highlighting issues such as illegal immigration and economic globalization. Once in power, his trade policies, based on perceptions of unfair competition with countries like China, resulted in the imposition of high tariffs on key products. These measures were justified as necessary to protect domestic industries and jobs, although they triggered trade wars at the international level. This article examines the economic consequences of the protectionist policies implemented by the United States under the Trump administration. The protection of less competitive sectors aims to reduce imports, negatively affecting production and income in exporting countries, and limiting U.S. exports to these markets. Although some countries have experienced an increase in real income due to trade diversion, overall, income fluctuations have been negative.