As an important type of knowledge, standards are key factors in economic development and technological innovation. To analyze the impact of participation in standards development on enterprise performance, this study takes China’s high-tech industry as an example. We use the operating data of listed enterprises in the industry in 2019 and conduct the propensity score matching method matching analysis on the entire sample and the classification. The conclusion shows: From an overall point of view, the participation of enterprises in the development of standards has a positive impact on the enterprise’s return on total assets. Specifically, participating in the development of over three standards can also improve the return on total assets. Large enterprises can increase the return on total assets of the enterprise and the return on invested capital. The state-owned enterprises have a positive effect on the return on total assets of the enterprise. Enterprises in the western, central, and eastern region enterprises can increase their net profit, enterprise value and net profit, return on total assets and enterprise value respectively. The enterprises in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area can improve their return on invested capital and enterprise value, average rate of return respectively. The participation in the development of national standards, industry standards and local standards can help increase their return on total assets, the return on total assets and enterprise value, enterprise value respectively. Finally, we suggestions are put forward to enhance enterprises’ enthusiasm to take part in standards development.

With its inherent characteristics of decentralization, immutability, and transparency, blockchain technology presents a promising opportunity to revolutionize the South African food supply chains. Blockchain technology, with its decentralized, immutable, and secure nature, offers solutions to these challenges by improving traceability and accountability across the supply chain. This study investigates the role of blockchain technology in enhancing transparency in the food supply chain among small and medium enterprises in South Africa. SMEs form a critical part of the country's agri-food sector but face challenges such as food fraud, inefficient inventory management, and lack of transparency, which impact food safety and trust. The research adopts a mixed-method approach, utilizing the Technology-Organization-Environment framework and Institutional Theory to explain blockchain adoption among SMEs. The results demonstrate that blockchain-enabled practices, such as smart contracts, records traceability, production tracking, and distribution monitoring, significantly enhance supply chain transparency. The findings highlight blockchain's potential to increase operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and stakeholder trust. This research provides valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners, emphasizing the need for regulatory support and strategic investment in blockchain solutions to promote sustainability and competitiveness in the agri-food sector.

The paper considers an important problem of the successful development of social qualities in an individual using machine learning methods. Social qualities play an important role in forming personal and professional lives, and their development is becoming relevant in modern society. The paper presents an overview of modern research in social psychology and machine learning; besides, it describes the data analysis method to identify factors influencing success in the development of social qualities. By analyzing large amounts of data collected from various sources, the authors of the paper use machine learning algorithms, such as Kohonen maps, decision tree and neural networks, to identify relationships between different variables, including education, environment, personal characteristics, and the development of social skills. Experiments were conducted to analyze the considered datasets, which included the introduction of methods to find dependencies between the input and output parameters. Machine learning introduction to find factors influencing the development of individual social qualities has varying dependence accuracy. The study results could be useful for both practical purposes and further scientific research in social psychology and machine learning. The paper represents an important contribution to understanding the factors that contribute to the successful development of individual social skills and could be useful in the development of programs and interventions in this area. The main objective of the research was to study the functionalities of the machine learning algorithms and various models to predict the students’s success in learning.

Mobile banking has become very important in today’s life as technological advancements have led bank clients to use banking services. Clients’ attitudes toward mobile banking services are based on their expectations is the background of this research. So, the main objective is to observe the purposeful conduct in mind of clients to adopt mobile banking services. This study also examines the influence of six variables on financial services clients’ desire to utilize mobile banking services, including perceived benefits, perceived ease of use, trust, security, perceived privacy, and technology expertise. Consequently, the goal of this study is to find out the crucial and deciding factors that may influence clients’ willingness to use mobile banking features in Bangladesh as a developing country. The sample shaped for this research is 310 respondents from Bangladesh a developing country. For analytical purposes, SEM has been used to test hypotheses. The results show that in Bangladesh, factors like perceived value, security, and technological aptitude greatly determine whether a customer will utilize mobile banking. Financial institutions have proven to be successful in serving clients through mobile phones. Clients have made good use of mobile banking only to save money, cost, and labor. The research suggests that mobile banking operations must be timely and accurate, the transaction process must be short, interactivity, convenience of usage, and so on. The findings have important implications for bank regulatory authority, management, bankers, and executives who wish to increase mobile banking usage to secure their long-term profitability.

Poverty is a major challenge caused by various situations as well as cultural, social, economic, and political interactions. Therefore, poverty alleviation programs and strategies require an integrated approach carried out in consistent and organized stages. It required the participation of all parties, both regional heads, Regional People’s Representative Assembly (RPRA) members, entrepreneurs, and other elements of society. This study aimed to investigate the effect of local spending efficiency on public welfare in Indonesia, using a quantitative and explanatory method. The analysis method used in this study is the panel data regression model. The research population in all provinces in Indonesia was 34 provinces, and a purposive sampling method was used, where a total of 26 provinces were selected. The research period is 2017–2021. The efficiency of local spending (education, health, and infrastructure) is estimated using the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) cost function approach. The results showed that the higher the efficiency of education spending, the more it will increase public welfare in Indonesia. Meanwhile, the health spending efficiency and the infrastructure spending efficiency do not affect public welfare. The implications of this study for the development of science are that the efficient allocation of education spending will be able to improve the quality of education which is a long-term solution to overcome poverty in Indonesia and for policymakers to be able to optimize education spending to achieve the expected educational goals.