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This article provides a systematic literature review of growing research on microfinance, as promoted by scholars and policymakers in an entrepreneurial finance context. The results suggest promising opportunities for further research on microfinance in developed countries. Bibliometric analyses were used to identify three main dimensions of microfinance that guide academic research: social considerations, economic effects, and performance of microfinance institutions. Most literature focuses on developing countries, reflecting the success of microfinance as an instrument for promoting social and economic development. A keyword co-occurrence analysis reveals that financial inclusion and entrepreneurship domains remain empirically underexplored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an initial study relating the adsorption of indium (III) onto carbonaceous materials, namely the activated carbon (AC), multiwalled carbon nanotubes functionalized with OH (MWCNT–OH), and the multiwalled carbon nanotubes functionalized with COOH (MWCNT–COOH). The main objective of this study is the development of the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and an artificial neural network (ANN) for predicting the adsorption capacity in different operating conditions for different materials. Both models take into account the adsorbent type, adsorbent dosage (0.05, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 g L−1), and the contact time (5, 20, 60, and 120 min) for predicting the adsorption capacity, which varied from 12.896 to 981.000 mg g−1, a total record of 72 was used. Both modeling methodologies applied can represent the experimental data, taking into account the statistical values obtained. The ANFIS achieved the best performance when the hybrid method was selected, this leads into R of 0.9998, RMSE of 48,373 with 250 epochs. On the other hand, the ANN can represent the best performance when using the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm, reaching an R of 0.9831, MSE of 0.0180 and 9 epochs. Considering the modeling and experimental aspects indicates that the increase of the adsorbent dosage diminished the adsorbent capacity. The increase of the contact time causes the effect to increase the adsorption capacity until its equilibrium. Lastly, it is possible to conclude that the MWCNT–COOH is the most suitable adsorbent to be used between the selected materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visual dimension of cities has been a fundamental subject in urban studies since the pioneering work of late-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century scholars such as Camillo Sitte, Kevin Lynch, Rudolf Arnheim, and Jane Jacobs. Several decades later, big data and artificial intelligence (AI) are revolutionizing how people move, sense, and interact with cities. This article reviews the literature on the appearance and function of cities to illustrate how visual information has been used to understand them. A conceptual framework, urban visual intelligence, is introduced to systematically elaborate on how new image data sources and AI techniques are reshaping the way researchers perceive and measure cities, enabling the study of the physical environment and its interactions with the socioeconomic environment at various scales. The article argues that these new approaches would allow researchers to revisit the classic urban theories and themes and potentially help cities create environments that align with human behaviors and aspirations in today's AI-driven and data-centric era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how information and communication technologies (ICT) may influence travel behavior of an informal transport system and whether and in which ways merging digital technologies represents disruption for a specific sociotechnical ensemble. For decades, ojek has been a form of informal passenger transport, based on motorcycles in Jakarta, and recently smartphone apps have become available in that sociotechnical arrangement. We randomly surveyed passengers and drivers in the central district, for both those who do and do not use these apps. Despite many similarities between both groups, the drivers who use smartphones for their trips reported higher daily incomes, longer average trip distances and a larger coverage area. Passengers using conventional ojek transport reported lower levels of both safety perception and satisfaction when compared to app-based ojek users. For both categories of user, ojek seems to compete with, complement and be an alternative to bus rapid transit and the suburban rail system (KRL) in the area covered by our sample. The areas covered by regular buses and vans roughly match the origins and destinations of ojek trips. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of wine industry wastes (grape peel, seed, and stem) as alternative biosorbents to remove Ag from aqueous media was investigated in this work. Wine industry wastes were washed, lyophilized and pulverized to obtain the biosorbents. The powdered biosorbents were characterized in detail and several batch experiments were performed to found the most suitable conditions for Ag biosorption. Kinetic, equilibrium, and thermodynamic studies were also performed. The interactions Ag-biosorbent were elucidated by analyses before and after the biosorption. For all wastes, the maximum removal percentages were found using a biosorbent dosage of 3.0 g L−1at pH of 7.0. The kinetic data were well represented by the pseudo-first-order model. The equilibrium was satisfactorily represented by the Sips model. The maximum biosorption capacities, found at 298 K, were: 41.7, 61.4, and 46.4 mg g−1for grape peel, seed, and stem, respectively. Thermodynamically, the biosorption was a spontaneous, favorable, exothermic, and enthalpy-controlled process. The magnitude of ΔH0indicated a physical sorption. These results showed that the wine industry wastes can be considered alternative efficient, low-cost, and eco-friendly biosorbents to remove Ag from aqueous media. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]