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Driving economic development at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) is an enduring global challenge. While the market-based approach places hope on entrepreneurship as a major impetus to drive the underdeveloped economy, the performance of entrepreneurial businesses and their impact on poverty reduction are sometimes below expectations. This paper seeks to examine the factors that may be hindering entrepreneurship within the BOP context. This paper presents preliminary answers and provides research suggestions related to this question.

In order to identify the reasons behind the underperformance of entrepreneurship at the BOP, a comprehensive literature review was conducted to see what is already known about this puzzle.

By reviewing extant literature, four clusters of factors were found to shape entrepreneurial activities at BOP: (1) Individual-level factors may be restraining entrepreneurial activities within BOP context, (2) gender inequality at BOP is hindering female entrepreneurship, (3) insufficient institutional support is holding back entrepreneurial activities in BOP and (4) business development initiatives are making multi-faceted impacts on entrepreneurial activities in BOP.

This paper contributes to theory in that it is the first comprehensive review of literature on constraints of entrepreneurship in the context of BOP. In investigating influential factors of entrepreneurial success in the BOP context, the authors recognize four major influential forces that are shaping entrepreneurial processes at the bottom of the pyramid and further propose three directions of future research that are worthy for further exploration.

This article advocates that privacy literacy research and praxis mobilize people toward changing the technological and social conditions that discipline subjects toward advancing institutional, rather than community, goals.

This article analyzes theory and prior work on datafication, privacy, data literacy, privacy literacy and critical literacy to provide a vision for future privacy literacy research and praxis.

This article (1) explains why privacy is a valuable rallying point around which people can resist datafication, (2) locates privacy literacy within data literacy, (3) identifies three ways that current research and praxis have conceptualized privacy literacy (i.e. as knowledge, as a process of critical thinking and as a practice of enacting information flows) and offers a shared purpose to animate privacy literacy research and praxis toward social change and (4) explains how critical literacy can help privacy literacy scholars and practitioners orient their research and praxis toward changing the conditions that create privacy concerns.

This article uniquely synthesizes existing scholarship on data literacy, privacy literacy and critical literacy to provide a vision for how privacy literacy research and praxis can go beyond improving individual understanding and toward enacting social change.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the ethical concerns associated with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the medical sector and to provide solutions that allow deriving maximum benefits from this technology without compromising ethical principles.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of AI in medicine, exploring its technical capabilities, practical applications, and ethical implications. Based on our expertise, we offer insights from both technical and practical perspectives.

The study identifies several advantages of AI in medicine, including its ability to improve diagnostic accuracy, enhance surgical outcomes, and optimize healthcare delivery. However, there are pending ethical issues such as algorithmic bias, lack of transparency, data privacy issues, and the potential for AI to deskill healthcare professionals and erode humanistic values in patient care. Therefore, it is important to address these issues as promptly as possible to make sure that we benefit from the AI’s implementation without causing any serious drawbacks.

This paper gains its value from the combined practical experience of Professor Elhassan gained through his practice at top hospitals worldwide, and the theoretical expertise of Dr. Arabi acquired from international institutes. The shared experiences of the authors provide valuable insights that are beneficial for raising awareness and guiding action in addressing the ethical concerns associated with the integration of artificial intelligence in medicine.

This paper aims to discuss the adequacy of restrictive measures. Providing a synopsis of a global movement toward the imposition of target restrictive measures. Questioning the success of targeted restrictive measures in obtaining behavioural change. Identifying a reversion to the implementation of wide ranging sectoral restrictive measures in an attempt to encourage immediate behavioural change. Accessing the success of using restrictive measures to encourage democratic regimes in Africa.

This study is a desktop research that examines European Parliament and Council issued Regulations for the jurisdictions of Iran, Russia and Belarus. Academic research is also used in identifying a pendulum swing by global legislatures with respect to the imposition of targeted measures to requiring the imposition of additional wide ranging sectoral measures.

Targeted measures can be circumvented using non-hostile third countries. Academic research identifies that wide reaching sectoral sanctions encourage regime change. Therefore, where targeted measures fail to give rise to their desired persuasive objectives. The legislator moves to introduce additional measures, also comprising of sectoral sanctions. Sectoral sanctions have been applied by the European Union in Iran, Russia and Belarus. The USA has taken measures to limit Russia ability to use Turkey as a transshipment hub. The African continent case study identifies the importance of creating an architecture founded on upholding positive governance and human rights standards. Failure to do so leads to a revolving system of authoritarian regimes, sanctioned by restrictive measures.

This paper is a desktop review composed by the author.

This paper outlines how Design for Lean Six Sigma methods aided a medical device manufacturing company in developing a new strategic space management and approval process for its manufacturing site.

The project demonstrates the application of the Design for Lean Six Sigma and structured Define, Measure, Analyse, Design, and Verify methodology in designing and implementing a process that enables the case study manufacturing site to improve its space utilisation and free up space.

The project was validated in one manufacturing department, and the Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology resulted in creating 15% new space for that area, with opportunities identified to free up 44.7% of the total manufacturing floor space and realise over €2.2 million cost savings as well as start to manufacture new products launched.

The manuscript highlights for the first time how the Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology can be utilised for space utilisation and can be leveraged by other manufacturers. The current study's limitations are that it is a single-site case study application. Future longitudinal case studies on Design for Lean Six Sigma application in more manufacturing space utilisation projects would be useful. This study has implications for identifying best practices for Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology application in the device industry, thus improving the state of the art for introducing new manufacturing lines.

This is the first published work to utilise Design for Lean Six Sigma methodology for space utilisation in a medical device company. This review will provide medical devices and other manufacturing organisations with recommendations on utilising Design for Lean Six Sigma and design for improved space utilisation to reduce costs.

The Cloud of Things (IoT) that refers to the integration of the Cloud Computing (CC) and the Internet of Things (IoT), has dramatically changed the way treatments are done in the ubiquitous computing world. This integration has become imperative because the important amount of data generated by IoT devices needs the CC as a storage and processing infrastructure. Unfortunately, security issues in CoT remain more critical since users and IoT devices continue to share computing as well as networking resources remotely. Moreover, preserving data privacy in such an environment is also a critical concern. Therefore, the CoT is continuously growing up security and privacy issues. This paper focused on security and privacy considerations by analyzing some potential challenges and risks that need to be resolved. To achieve that, the CoT architecture and existing applications have been investigated. Furthermore, a number of security as well as privacy concerns and issues as well as open challenges, are discussed in this work.

This research aims to examine the US–China policy shift from Obama to Biden emphasizing the centrality of Taiwan question in the geostrategic competition with Beijing and its prospect if the US strategy remains unchanged.

A conceptual framework is outlined, illustrating how the US grand strategy is driven by the ideological foundation of Exceptionalism. The paper highlights the associated US policy changes that evolved from Obama to Trump and then Biden to advance Washington's strategic interests in its rivalry with China over Taiwan.

Biden's policy led to an escalating geopolitical competition with Beijing over Taiwan to maintain US supremacy. The Biden administration is more stringent than the previous administrations on the Taiwan question and there is the conviction that the USA must not back down on Taiwan because the alternative will be a retraction of US world primacy to Beijing. With Washington's persistent hegemonic strategy, the US–China confrontation over Taiwan seems inevitable.

The research highlights how the Biden administration managed a perpetuated Ukraine crisis and forged unprecedented high-level ties with Taiwan, indicating the administration's determination to exacerbate contentions with Beijing over Taiwan rather than de-escalate.