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Over the past two decades, the hub location domain has witnessed remarkable growth, yet no prior study reviewed and synthesised problem formulation and solution methodologies to address real-life challenges.

The current study conducts a comprehensive bibliometric literature review to develop a thematic framework that describes and presents hub location problems. The work employs cluster, bibliometric, and social network analyses to delve into the essential themes.

Key themes include cooperation, coopetition, sustainability, reshoring, and dynamic demand, contributing to the complex challenges in today’s hub location problems. As the first work in this field, the study serves as a valuable single-source reference, providing scholars and industry practitioners with key insights into the evolution of hub location research, prominent research clusters, influential authors, leading countries, and crucial keywords.

Findings have significant implications since they highlight the current state of hub location research and set the stage for future endeavours. Specifically, by identifying prominent research clusters, scholars can explore promising directions to push the boundaries of knowledge in this area.

This work is a valuable resource for scholars in this domain and offers practical insights for industry practitioners seeking to understand the hub location problems. Overall, the study’s holistic approach provides a solid foundation for advancing future research work in the hub location field.

Motivated by the increasing need to provide support to refugees, which remains as a pressing issue in the agenda of many countries, the purpose of this paper is to consider the refugee camp management problem. Although each of these countries may have different procedures shaped by their own culture, rules and regulations, the main structure of the problem can be modeled utilizing a general framework which will apply to different practices.

In this study, the authors consider the issue with an operations research (OR) perspective and provide such a framework utilizing Turkish Red Crescent (TRC)’s field expertise in many regions of the world. In the proposed framework, the overall refugee camp management problem is first categorized in two main phases: the establishment phase, which consists of one-time decisions like infrastructure design and the administration phase, which focuses on routine decisions that are taken on a periodic basis like aid distribution.

The authors then provide a unifying decision-making model for the establishment phase and detail the administrative phase via subcategories, linking the relevant problems to the OR literature. The proposed framework is general enough to be used by practitioners and to be utilized by the academicians to define new OR problems to the literature.

TRC’s know-how is very broad and extensive. Integrating that know-how with OR perspective, the authors provide a general framework that could be of use to practitioners as well as academicians. The proposed framework will constitute an example for countries of asylum and national or international NGOs to manage the refugee camps efficiently. The authors also highlight main challenges and dynamics of the decision-making problems encountered in different parts of the proposed framework, which may constitute many different problems to the OR literature each of which can open new venues for future research.

Rapid development of IT and communication technologies resulted in the “Smart” concept, which of late has become quite popular. The smart concept signifies the integration of organizational networks and smart features that enrich the ecosystem, facilitate daily activities for all stakeholders, and for automatization. Smart concept was discussed as a complicated technological infrastructure in urban areas intended to promote economic, social and environmental welfare. The latest technological developments gave rise to the concepts of smart planet, smart city and smart destination that have become important in recent years. Technological innovations have had a big influence on the development of the tourism industry. Smart concept is conceptualized as smart tourism for tourism sector. Smart Tourism generally has a positive effect on the rapid change of information and technology and on the tourism sector, tourism activities and increase in customer satisfaction. In this chapter, the concept of Smart and its smart technologies are explained and information about its reflections on the tourism sector and smart tourism destinations are discussed.

This paper addresses the under-explored collateral damage of economic sanctions, shedding light on the disproportionate harm endured by the most vulnerable segments of societies, which at the same time lack political influence to effect the ruling government into change. The primary objective is to review the literature on humanitarian repercussions associated with sanctions, concluding if they really are a comparably human way of international interference.

Employing a systematic literature review, adhering to the PRISMA approach, and incorporating key term definitions and clear selection criteria, this review analyses 52 studies sourced from Scopus and EconBiz.

The surveyed literature reveals profound adverse impacts of sanctions on health, economic well-being, inequality, and education. Critical gaps in the literature such as disproportional focus on extreme cases like Iran and Iraq, scarce literature on effects on education and inequality, and predominantly inadequate control groups are identified, limiting the generalizability of existing findings.

This paper is the first systematic and replicable review of the literature on the effects of sanctions using a capabilistic approach to define poverty. Highlighting gaps in the current research landscape underscores the limited generalizability of reviewed results. Providing a well-structured summary of existing literature, this work serves as a foundation for future research.

Aging adults from low-income residential areas were found to have poor nutritional status and mental health based on National Health and Morbidity Survey Malaysia (2015). Good nutrient intake contributes positively in averting these problems. Traditional Asian vegetables (ulam) are rich in polyphenols, antioxidants and fibres which could enhance nutritional status and mood state. This study intended to determine the relationship between habitual ulam intake and nutritional status, mood state and cognition among 252 aging Malaysian adults aged 45–80 years from the low-income residential areas in Klang Valley, Malaysia.

It was a cross-sectional study that used convenient sampling. Advertisement and invitation letters were sent to three selected community centres in Klang Valley prior to data collection. Informed consent was obtained prior to the collection of socio-demographic data. Anthropometric measurement was performed as per standard protocols. Validated surveys were conducted to obtain information on ulam consumption, mood state and cognitive status using validated food frequency questionnaires, Profile of Mood State and Mini-Mental State Examination questionnaires, respectively.

The average of ulam intake was 20.5 ± 2.5 g/day (½ serving daily). Habitual ulam intake was associated with lower waist circumference (R² = 0.166, β = −0.216, p < 0.01), better MMSE scores (R² = 0.337, β = 0.128, p < 0.05), less anger (R² = 0.081, β = −0.116, p < 0.05), less tension (R² = 0.139, β = −0.204, p < 0.01) and positive total mood disturbance (R² = 0.095, β = 0.164, p < 0.05) after adjustment for gender, age, energy intake, total fruits and vegetables (non-ulam) consumption. The ulam intake at 100th percentile (=30g/day) associated to a better nutritional status, mood state and cognitive status in comparison to 25th percentile (<7.9 g/day) (p < 0.05).

Findings from this research would recommend people to consume not less than 1 serving of ulam everyday in order to have improved nutritional status, mood and cognition; nonetheless, future studies are required to clarify the causal mechanism concerning this relationship.

There are many entrepreneurial communities in the Asian subcontinent, which are known for their economic resilience and religious orientation but have received limited attention in extant literature. These communities include Memon, Delhiwala, Chinioti, Ismaili and Bohri, which have been persistent in keeping their members economically stable, as many centuries, while also retaining their religio-sociocultural identity. This paper aims to add to the body of literature by documenting the possible factors, which contribute toward advancing socio-economic justice for the members of respective communities.

This study uses Eisenhardth research strategy within a social constructivist paradigm to process data from in-depth interviews, memos and documentary sources to explore the internal dynamics of three most prominent of these communities (Memon, Delhiwala and Chinioti) in Pakistan.

The findings reveal that the secret to their resilience is, perhaps, rooted in their religio-sociocultural communal norms, which may not just ensure effective wealth redistribution among the deserving segments of the society but may also enable its deserving members to achieve self-reliance through community-supported–entrepreneurial–activity. This study proposes that a culture of community-based–family–entrepreneurship coupled with the spirit of cooperation, sacrifice and reciprocity may eliminate the possibility of socioeconomic injustice.

The religious entrepreneurial communities may be seen as an alternate to free-market or state-driven methods to impart socioeconomic justice where needed. The voluntary inclination of entrepreneurs in such communities to facilitate those in need may, perhaps, reduce or even eliminate the need to involve state intervention to redistribute wealth through taxation, which may also eliminate the cost of the state bureaucracy, which is used for the collection and redistribution of taxes.

The findings add to the body of literature which could help similar communities to improve their socioeconomic stability in a just manner for all its members. Policymakers can also take notice of the religio-sociocultural norms at the source of socioeconomic justice within the respective communities to formulate policies conducive to sustaining such norms where necessary.