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Any examiner knows that prepositions can be a source of mistakes in English. Their use is governed by idiom, so that it is not possible to give simple rules to guide the learner; he has to learn from experience. Even native speakers of English sometimes make mistakes and use the wrong preposition on occasions.

This paper aims to examine the integration of lateral transshipment and road vulnerability into the humanitarian relief chain in light of affected area priority to address equitable distribution and assess the impact of various parameters on the total average inflated distance traveled per relief item.

After identifying comprehensive critical criteria and subcriteria, a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making framework was applied to obtain the demand points’ weight and ranking in a real-life earthquake scenario. Direct shipment and lateral transshipment models were then presented and compared. The developed mathematical models are formulated as mixed-integer programming models, considering facility location, inventory prepositioning, road vulnerability and quantity of lateral transshipment.

The study found that the use of prioritization criteria and subcriteria, in conjunction with lateral transshipment and road vulnerability, resulted in a more equitable distribution of relief items by reducing the total average inflated distance traveled per relief item.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first research on equity in humanitarian response through prioritization of demand points. It also bridges the gap between two areas that are typically treated separately: multi-criteria decision-making and humanitarian logistics.

This is the first scholarly work in Shiraz focused on the equitable distribution system by prioritization of demand points and assigning relief items to them after the occurrence of a medium-scale earthquake scenario considering lateral transshipment in the upper echelon.

The paper clarifies how to prioritize demand points to promote equity in humanitarian logistics when the authors have faced multiple factors (i.e. location of relief distribution centers, inventory level, distance, lateral transshipment and road vulnerability) simultaneously.

Index entries from the subject indexes to CA can, in general, be converted to ‘normal’ or title‐like phrases by applying simple tests to the positions of prepositions and conjunctions in the entries. Other, more complex, entries can be transformed after somewhat deeper analysis. These manipulations are a necessary preliminary step to the use of the subject‐index language in retrieval. A scheme is outlined for automatically compiling and editing subject indexes by transforming descriptive phrases with regular structure and vocabulary. These transformations, based on the formal structure of language, are shown to be admirably suited to computer manipulation.

Recently, leasing has been prominent in the press due to the Air Force’s recent ill-fated attempt to obtain the use of Boeing re-fueling tankers. Forgotten is that, in the early 1980’s, a highly controversial Navy long-term leasing program of Maritime Prepositioned Ships had a different result. However, an unintended consequence of the Navy’s success was that future government leases were practically eliminated. This research examines the issues and parties involved in this unprecedented creative and innovative leasing program for ships used by the Navy’s Military Sealift Command. While the analysis concludes that the Navy’s leasing program was successful and cost effective, laws and policies were changed so that long-term leasing is no longer viable for the strategic financing of military requirements. The case is presented here that existing laws and regulations should be reconsidered so that leased military resources can once again be used to provide and maintain national security.

The purpose of this paper is to link humanitarian logistics (HL) and supply chain risk management (SCRM) to provide an understanding of risk mitigation strategies that humanitarian organisations use, or could use, to improve their logistics preparedness.

Based on systematic reviews of RMS in SCRM and supply chain strategies (SCS) in HL literature, a framework is developed and used to review published case studies in HL.

The study finds that humanitarian actors use a number of the strategies proposed in the framework, particularly those related to strategic stocks, postponement, and collaboration. Strategies related to sourcing and procurement, however, especially those on supplier relationships, seem to be lacking in both research and practice.

The study is based on secondary data and could be further developed through case studies based on primary data. Future studies should explore the generalisability of the findings.

Practitioners can use the framework to identify potential new SCS and how strategies can be combined. Findings can help them to understand the abnormal risks of main concern, how they may impact normal risks, and provide ideas on how to tackle trade-offs between different risks.

The results can support improvements in humanitarian supply chains, which will provide affected people with rapid, cost-efficient, and better-adapted responses.

The paper connects SCRM and HL to develop a framework and suggests propositions on how humanitarian actors can mitigate supply chain risks. Questioning the focus on strategic stock it suggests complementary or alternative strategies for improving logistics preparedness.

This paper aims to design a vulnerability assessment model considering the multidimensional and systematic approach to disaster risk and vulnerability. This model serves to both risk mitigation and disaster preparedness phases of humanitarian logistics.

A survey of 27,218 households in Pueblo Rico and Dosquebradas was conducted to obtain information about disaster risk for landslides, floods and collapses. We adopted a cross entropy-based approach for the measure of disaster vulnerability (Kullback–Leibler divergence), and a maximum-entropy estimation for the reconstruction of risk a priori categorization (logistic regression). The capabilities approach of Sen supported theoretically our multidimensional assessment of disaster vulnerability.

Disaster vulnerability is shaped by economic, such as physical attributes of households, and health indicators, which are in specific morbidity indicators that seem to affect vulnerability outputs. Vulnerability is heterogeneous between communities/districts according to formal comparisons of Kullback–Leibler divergence. Nor social dimension, neither chronic illness indicators seem to shape vulnerability, at least for Pueblo Rico and Dosquebradas.

The results need a qualitative or case study validation at the community/district level.

We discuss how risk mitigation policies and disaster preparedness strategies can be driven by empirical results. For example, the type of stock to preposition can vary according to the disaster or the kind of alternative policies that can be formulated on the basis of the strong relationship between morbidity and disaster risk.

Entropy-based metrics are not widely used in humanitarian logistics literature, as well as empirical data-driven techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the relief procurement process as one of the most important elements of humanitarian logistics. For doing so, a novel two-round decision model is developed to capture the dynamic nature of the relief procurement process by allowing demand updating. The model accounts for the supply priority of items at response phase as well.

A mixed procurement/supply policy is developed through a mathematical model, which includes spot market procurement and a novel procurement auction mechanism combining the concepts of multi-attribute and combinatorial reverse auctions. The model is of bi-objective mixed-integer non-linear programming type, which is solved through the weighted augmented e-constraint method. A case study is also provided to illustrate the applicability of the model.

This study demonstrates the ability of proposed approach to model post-disaster procurement which considers the dynamic environment of the relief logistics. The sensitivity analyses provide useful managerial insights for decision makers by studying the impacts of critical parameters on the solutions.

This paper proposes a novel reverse auction framework for relief procurement in the form of a multi-attribute combinatorial auction. Also, to deal with dynamic environment in the post-disaster procurement, a novel two-period programming model with demand updating is proposed. Finally, by considering the priority of relief items and model’s applicability in the setting of relief logistics, post-disaster horizon is divided into three periods and a mixed procurement strategy is developed to determine an appropriate supply policy for each period.

Decision-making structures are commonly associated with the logistics challenges experienced during disaster operations. However, the alignment between the operational level and the decision-making structure is commonly overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the fit of both levels and its impact on performance.

The research is developed around a case study in Mexico. Through a review of the disaster management policy in the country, interviews and secondary data, the paper provides an analysis of the current decision-making structure, the logistics activities undertaken by authorities and the impact of the alignment between both components on logistics performance.

The analysis suggests that several of the challenges commonly associated with centralisation are actually rooted on its alignment with the operational level. The logistics performance is negatively affected by faulty assumptions, poorly planned procedures, inconsistent decision-making and poorly designed structures. The case showed the need to align the operational level with a centralised perspective to increase responsiveness, flexibility and the interaction between different organisations.

This paper identifies the impact of the misalignment between the decision-making structure and the operational level on logistics performance, an area currently understudied. It moves from the current argument about the appropriate decision-making structure for disaster management to the identification of components to implement an efficient and effective disaster management system. Additionally, this paper provides recommendations for best practices in humanitarian logistics, which are applicable to Mexico and other countries using a centralised decision-making approach.

The expression of conceptual syntagmatic relationships in document retrieval systems holds out hope for both increased discrimination (generally) and increased recall (in certain contexts). The inclusion of such relationships in retrieval systems requires both a structured inventory of relationships and some means of expressing them; this article examines the latter. To be fully effective, the expression of conceptual syntagmatic relationships must comply with criteria of systematicity, complexity, efficiency and naturalness. Unfortunately, the complex interaction of natural language means of expressing these relationships (lexicalisation, word order, function words and morphosyntactic cases) causes them to fail the systematicity criterion. Most document retrieval system means of expressing conceptual syntagmatic relationships (as exemplified by various term co‐occurrence techniques, links and role indicators) fail to comply with this and other of the criteria. Only gestalt structures simultaneously representing relationships, participants and roles (for example, frames) conform fully to the criterial checklist.