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This study examines how digitization affects customer satisfaction in a Bank in Zambia. With the financial industry rapidly changing due to technology, digital banking services have become crucial. Zambia's banking sector has seen significant digitization in recent years, including mobile banking, online transactions, and ATM access. Therefore, it is essential for banks and policymakers to understand the impact of digitization on customer satisfaction. The aim of the study was to investigate the effect digitalization has on customer satisfaction at a local bank in Zambia. A survey strategy using structured questionnaires was employed to gather data. The findings highlight the importance of factors such as convenience, accessibility, speed, customer alerts for transactions, and real-time feedback in determining customer satisfaction in a digitized banking environment. The results of this study have valuable implications for both the bank and policymakers. Understanding how digitization influences customer satisfaction provides insights that drive strategic decisions to enhance customer experiences and loyalty in the digital era. The significance of digitization in the banking sector its ability to transform customer satisfaction is emphasized in the conclusion. Through an examination of the different aspects of this correlation, it provides insight into the obstacles and prospects that digitization offers to banks. These findings are crucial for remaining competitive and guaranteeing customer satisfaction in a constantly evolving and technology-driven industry, as digital banking continues to progress.

Environmental concerns are gradually reducing the global yield capacity of agricultural systems, with climate change representing the most significant challenge. Globally, Potatoes are the most essential non-cereal crop. Therefore, understanding the potential impacts of climate change on potato production is crucial for maintaining future global food security. This study aims to explore the roles played by PGPMs in two distinct regions, which are characterized by different climatic conditions, to assess their influence on two potato varieties, namely Siena and Bellini. Inoculation with these strains, particularly the Aureobasidium pullulans strains Ach1-1 and Ach1-2, resulted in significant improvements in growth and yield. In 2018, impressive yields of 194.1 kg/0.05 ha and 186.6 kg/0.05 ha were recorded for the two strains, with the Ain Taoujdate site achieving yields of 157.1 kg/0.05 ha and 151.1 kg/0.05 ha for each of the two strains. Additionally, further observations revealed that the Siena variety is more susceptible to rot than the Bellini variety. However, Ach1-1 and Ach1-2 strains had a significant effect on this rot, showcasing their potential to mitigate this negative issue in the Bellini variety. These promising results underscore the potential of PGPMs to enhance potato production in the Fez–Meknes region of Morocco, contributing to global food security amid climate change.

Remote sensing (RS) data and geographic information system (GIS) techniques were used to monitor the changes in the Oasis agroecosystem of the pre-Saharan province of Errachidia, southeastern Morocco. The land use and land cover (LULC) change of the agroecosystem of this province was processed using Landsat time series with 5-year intervals of the last thirty years. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the maximum likelihood classification (MLC) were categorized into five classes, including water bodies, cultivated land, bare land, built-up, and desertified land. The overall accuracy of the MLC maps was estimated to be higher than 90%. The finding showed a degradation trend represented by an increase in desertified lands, which tripled in the ten last years, passing from 20.62% in 2011 to 58.49% in 2022. The findings also depicted a decreasing trend in the cultivated area in this period passing from 174.2 km2 in 1991 to 82.2 km2 in 2022. Using NDWI, Landsat images from 1991 to 2021 depicted a strong association between the water reserve in Hassan Eddakhil dam in the upstream area and the LULC changes. The oases from the dam (upstream) to Er-Rissani (downstream) recorded high rates of decline with an increasing trend of desertification due to drought and overuse mainly of groundwater. The outputs of this research effort constitute a significant source of information that may be used to support further research and decision-makers to manage arid ecosystems and achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs), precisely the SDGs 15 (Life on land).

<p>An adequate water supply is essential for the growth and development of crops. When rainfall is insufficient, irrigation is necessary to meet crop water needs. It is a crucial and strategic aspect of economic and social development. To combat climate change, there is a need to adopt irrigation management techniques that increase and stabilize agricultural production while saving water, using intelligent agricultural water technologies. Internet of things (IoT) based technologies can achieve optimal use of water resources. This article introduces a smart realtime irrigation management system based on the internet of things. It provides optimal management of irrigation decisions using real-time weather and soil moisture data, as well as data from precipitation forecasts. The proposed algorithm is developed in real-time based on the IoT, enabling us to guide irrigation and control the amount of water in agricultural applications. The system uses real-time data analysis of climate, soil, and crop data to provide flexible planning of the irrigation system’s use. A case study from the Fez-Meknes region in Morocco is presented to demonstrate the proposed system’s effectiveness</p>

Abstract The North African steppe areas represent a heritage of great economic and ecological importance. These areas, which were once prosperous, are currently experiencing significant degradation and a decrease in productivity due to several factors. The objective of this study was to evaluate the dynamics of the steppe vegetation, identify the responsible factors, and present perspectives for their management and restoration. The methodological approach adopted for the characterization of climatic and socioeconomic conditions and the analysis of vegetation dynamics combined classical geomatics methods with a data mining method by mobilizing several sources and on important temporal horizons. This study was optimized by using the Google Earth Engine platform. Results showed that steppe areas are characterized by their plant richness and great potential for resilience despite their low vegetation cover. The analysis of the dynamics of change has highlighted a regressive trend in steppe vegetation during the study period (1995–2020). This study has been able to highlight the extent of the dynamics of the steppes in the study area during the last 26 years and to identify the human activity as the main trigger for the transformation that steppe areas are currently undergoing. Such results improve our knowledge of these areas and open perspectives for their management.

<span lang="EN-US">As in Industry 4.0 era, the impact of the internet of things (IoT) on the advancement of the agricultural sector is constantly increasing. IoT enables automation, precision, and efficiency in traditional farming methods, opening up new possibilities for agricultural advancement. Furthermore, many IoT-based smart farming systems are designed based on fog and edge architecture. Fog computing provides computing, storage, and networking services to latency-sensitive applications (such as Agribots-agricultural robots-drones, and IoT-based healthcare monitoring systems), instead of sending data to the cloud. However, due to the limited computing and storage resources of fog nodes used in smart farming, designing a modules placement scheme for resources management is a major challenge for fog based smart farming applications. In this paper, our proposed module placement algorithm aims to achieve efficient resource utilization of fog nodes and reduce application <span>delay and network usage in Fog-based smart farming applications. To evaluate the efficacy of our proposal, the simulation was done using iFogSim. Results show that the proposed approach is able to achieve significant</span> reductions in latency and network usage.</span>

AbstractIn the fourth industrial revolution, achieving sustainable agricultural development while feeding a growing world population and maintaining a balanced interrelationship between the economy, society, and the environment has been a significant challenge. However, COVID-19 disrupted agricultural extension and advisory systems, affecting all market participants. The complexity of the pandemic has impacted the private sector, public sector, extension staff, donor funding, education, and research systems, subsequently affecting human nutrition. This paper aims to expertly review COVID-19’s effects on the sustainability of gender-specific agricultural extension service systems. Demand and supply market stakeholders in the extension system are thematically discussed. The findings reveal various consequences of COVID-19 for market actors on both the demand and supply sides of the extension system. Private-sector players often support expansion directly or indirectly, with multi-sectorial support and funding strategies existing for sustainability. In many developing nations, the comprehensive extension system was disrupted by COVID-19, impacting household incomes and nutrition. The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital technologies in many developing nations, transitioning from a centralized to a decentralized and pluralistic extension model. Multi-sector coordination and execution, especially from health and other sectors, are crucial in managing complex crises that disrupt the market system.

Firms strive to become agile as part of their organization’s transformation to face the changes spurred by the digital world. Thus, this study aims to provide new and insightful findings to assist firms in carrying out digital transformations through agility. We surveyed agility practitioners currently operating in companies undergoing or within digital transformation. Our findings suggest that agility and digital transformation are still in their early stages and that they may coexist. Moreover, the study supported that if agility is well-enabled, it can assist an organization's digital transformation by leveraging the following components, namely agile culture, collaboration, value-co-creation, experimentation, willingness to take risks, continuous improvement, and organizational learning, seizing market opportunities, competitiveness, and agile leadership. In addition, the study identified the pain points that companies encounter in this process, including employee resistance to change. Finally, the findings represent a first step toward a shared understanding of ways to carry out digital transformations through agility and serve to guide future research work while also assisting practitioners in implementing digital transformation effectively.