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The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is critical for the successful execution of logistics activities. However, there is strong evidence that efficiently solving the VRP is often complicated and requires more powerful – and possibly intelligent – support tools. In accordance with this necessity, the present study proposes a decision support system (DSS) applicable to the VRP, which includes both initial planning and replanning phases to support the real-time operations.

The proposed DSS lies at the basis of resilience thinking to provide a capacity to absorb and withstand the impact of disruptions, where resilience is connected with the factors of preparedness, flexibility and redundancy. These factors are approached in this study through a number of operational strategies in the reactive and proactive modes. The DSS includes a multi-layer perceptron neural network to predict changes that may arise in dynamic contexts, a modified k-means clustering algorithm to group customers with both static and dynamic attributes and two mixed-integer programming models to produce primary and alternate routing plans.

The research is motivated by the operational challenges faced by a collaborative networked clinical laboratory, which seeks to enhance efficiency and productivity in the daily management of medical sample collection and delivery through the implementation of increased automation. The findings reveal that centralized planning leads to heightened vulnerability in route planning and increased costs for replanning. Furthermore, the effectiveness of resilience-enhancement strategies varies based on the source and level of uncertainty.

The contributions of this paper are as follows: incorporating resilience thinking into the operational planning of logistics services, managing the decision-making of transport and collection companies through a DSS framework to ensure proper support to real-time operations, addressing the clustered VRP in a dynamic setting and adopting forecasting approaches to cover possible sources of dynamism.

To transition into a green/circular economy (CE), both academics and industrialists have undertaken research into various areas of circular business models (CBM), yet despite numerous studies conducted, the ensuing discourse contains scant information regarding the barriers to CBM adoption in the built environment. Therefore, this present study explores the critical barriers hindering the adoption of CBM in the Ghanaian construction industry (GCI), establishing the criticality of the principal barriers identified.

The mixed philosophies of interpretivism and postpositivism were adopted to deductively analyse primary data collected via a survey questionnaire. A comprehensive literature review was first conducted to identify the barriers of adopting CBM in the construction industry. Data gathered from professionals with knowledge of CBM and the green/CE were then analysed using descriptive statistics and inferential fuzzy synthetic evaluation.

Emergent barriers to CBM adoption in the GCI were identified as institutional barriers (i.e. inadequate technology development and transfer, insufficient green incentives in the industry and lack of institutional framework that promote); proficiency barriers (i.e. lack of understanding of circular business models, inadequacy of expertise amongst construction professionals, unfamiliar techniques associated with circular business models and fear of greater investment cost) and cultural barriers (i.e. cultural reluctancy of clients to embrace circular urbanization, inadequate measurement tool, lack of a culture that encourages community engagement in environmental decision-making, inadequate performance information and database, lack of prior experience of stakeholders, inadequate government policies, low public awareness and lack of manufacturer and supplier support). The fuzzy synthetic analysis confirmed all the principal barriers as critical. These barriers had a respective criticality index of 3.66, 3.59 and 3.39. Evidently, the CBM adoption in the GCI faces major challenges and consequently, sector stakeholders must strategize their organizational undertakings to transition their traditional business models towards innovative circular ones.

This study provides a novel and thorough evaluation on the barriers to CBM adoption and establishes the criticality of the identified barriers. The study's findings offer essential direction to GCI stakeholders and policymakers to facilitate the shift towards a CE in accordance with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Understanding the multifaceted images of tourism destinations is critical for effective destination marketing and management strategies. Traditional approaches, including conceptualization of destination images or analysis of their antecedents and consequences, are commonly used. This study aims to advocate the inclusion of visitors’ latent profiles based on cognitive images to enrich the evaluation and formulation of destination marketing and management strategies.

The analysis focuses on Serbia, an emerging destination, that attracts an increasing number of first-time, repeat and prospective visitors. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used to test the potential dimensions (tangible and intangible cultural destination; infrastructural and accessible destination; active, nature and family destination; sensory and hospitable destination; and welcoming, value for money (VFM) and safe destination) of the cognitive destination image factors scale while subtypes (profiles) were obtained using latent profile analysis (LPA).

The cognitive image component encompasses the perceived attributes of a destination, whether derived from direct experience or acquired through other means. The study identified the following profiles: conventional destination; sensory and hospitable destination; welcoming, VFM and safe destination; secure and active family destination and accessible cultural destination, which are presented individually with their sociodemographic assets.

The main contribution of the paper is the application of a novel method (LPA) for profiling visitor segments based on cognitive destination image. From a theoretical perspective, this research contributes to the extant body of literature pertaining to the destination image, thereby facilitating the identification of discrete latent visitor segments and elucidating noteworthy differences among them concerning a cognitive image.

In alignment with the European Union’s Vision Zero initiative to eliminate road fatalities by 2050, leveraging technological advancements becomes crucial for addressing the challenges of vulnerable road users (VRUs), and for mitigating the impact of human error. Despite increasing scholarly interest in applications of extended reality (XR), a research gap persists, particularly in the role of XR in transportation safety. Therefore, the aim of the study was to fill this gap through a systematic literature review to evaluate comprehensively the potential scope and practical applicability of XR technologies in enhancing the safety of VRUs.

A systematic review was undertaken, following PRISMA guidelines meticulously, in which 80 relevant articles from databases, such as Scopus and Science Direct, were identified and analysed.

The results of the analysis revealed the potential of XR beyond pedestrians and cyclists, and highlighted a lack of research about the impact of XR with regard to the personal traits or abilities of VRUs. The results of a thorough analysis confirmed the potential of XR as a promising solution for an approach to collaborative co-creation in addressing the safety challenges of VRUs. In addition, the integration of eye-tracking with virtual reality emerged as a promising innovation for enhancing the safety of vulnerable road users.

Theoretical implications include enhancing the understanding of applications of XR in VRUs’ safety and providing insights into future research possibilities and methodological approaches. Valuable insights into search strategies and inclusion-exclusion criteria can guide future research methodologies.

Practically, the findings from the study offer insights to assist urban planners and transportation authorities in incorporating XR technologies effectively for VRUs safety. Identifying areas for further development of XR technology could inspire innovation and investment in solutions designed to meet the safety needs of VRUs, such as enhanced visualisation tools and immersive training simulations.

The findings of previous research underscore the vast potential of XR technologies within the built environment, yet their utilisation remains limited in the urban transport sector. The intricacies of urban traffic scenarios pose significant challenges for VRUs, making participation in mobility studies hazardous. Hence, it is crucial to explore the scope of emerging technologies in addressing VRUs issues as a pre-requisite for establishing comprehensive safety measures.

The study aims to investigate the low-velocity impact (LVI) on the surface of a beam with a changeable cross-sectional area. In the study “LVI on a beam with a changeable cross-sectional area and clamped-free boundary conditions”, the effect of changes in the cross-section are on the contact force, the beam displacement, the impactor displacement and the impactor velocity are investigated.

To obtain the motion equations, first, a field of displacements of the beam is written using third-order shear deformation of beams, including the exponential shear–strain function, and then the energy method is used. By combining Hamilton’s approaches and Ritz’s method, finally, the equations of motion are extracted. Using ABAQUS finite element code, validation of the theoretical approach is carried out. In this study, the beam with changeable cross-sectional area is considered in such a way that the height of the beam is constant, but the width of the beam changes linearly.

The results show that assuming the width of the beam in the clamped support is constant, an increase in the width of the beam in the free support leads to an increase in the peak contact force and the residual velocity of the impactor, also, the peak displacement of the beam and the impactor are decreased.

It can be shown from the analysis of LVI on beams with nonuniform cross-sectional area that the important influence on the contact force, impactor residual velocity, beam displacement and impactor displacement is achieved.

Business schools are vital in promoting responsible management (RM) – a management grounded in ethics and values beneficial to a wide array of stakeholders and overall society. Nevertheless, due to deeply embedded institutional modernistic dynamics and paradigms, RM is, despite its importance, repeatedly marginalised in business school curricula. If students are to engage with RM thinking, then its occlusion represents a pressing issue. Drawing on the United Kingdom (UK) business school context, this paper aims to examine this issue through a framework of institutional theory and consider the role played by (modernistic) institutional accreditation and research assessment processes in marginalisation of RM.

This study used an exploratory qualitative research method. Data were collected from 17 RM expert participants from 15 UK business schools that were signatories to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education through semi-structured in-depth interviews and analysed using the six phases of Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis.

The study identifies a potent institutional isomorphic amalgam resulting in conservative impacts for RM. This dynamic is termed multiple institutional isomorphic marginalisation (MIIM) – whereby a given domain is occluded and displaced by hegemonic institutional pressures. In RM’s case, MIIM operates through accreditation-driven modernistic-style curricula. This leads business schools to a predilection towards “mainstream” representations of subject areas and a focus on mechanistic research exercises. Consequently, this privileges certain activities over RM development with a range of potential negative effects, including social impacts.

This study fills an important gap concerning the need for a critical, in-depth exploration of the role that international accreditation frameworks and national institutional academic research assessment processes such as the Research Excellence Framework in the UK play in affecting the possible growth and influence of RM. In addition, it uses heterotopia as a conceptual lens to reveal the institutional “mask” of responsibility predominantly at play in the UK business school context, and offers alternative pathways for RM careers.

Based on studies combining sustainable development competencies and green consumption values, this paper aims to explore the relationship between Generation Z's sustainable development competencies and green consumption values and to determine how sources of sustainable knowledge acquisition moderate this relationship.

The data collected from 1,570 students were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Our research confirms that sustainable development competencies positively and significantly impact Generation Z’s attitudes toward green consumption values. Furthermore, sources of sustainability knowledge acquisition moderate the relationship between sustainability literacy and Generation Z attitudes toward green consumption values. The findings suggest that the acquisition of sustainability knowledge from multiple sources is critical in shaping Generation Z attitudes toward green consumption values.

The key to increasing attitudes toward green consumption values among Generation Z is to provide access to sources of sustainable development knowledge acquisition. Adequate information support generated by sources of sustainable development knowledge acquisition can help shape attitudes toward green consumption values that translate into appropriate purchasing decisions.

The survey indicates the significance of diversifying sources of sustainable development knowledge. Although the study received results suggest that Generation Z’s sustainable development competencies influence attitudes toward green consumption values, they allow us to note that much greater effects are generated when a variety of sources of sustainable development knowledge acquisition are used. Thus, it is desirable not only to communicate about sustainable development but also to tailor the sources of sustainable development knowledge acquisition to the audience’s expectations are desirable.

This study analyzes the relationships between sustainable development competencies and green consumption attitudes, thus filling the gap in sustainable development competencies research and broadening its scope. The results indicate the need to change attitudes through the development of competencies that should enable active and responsible participation in sustainability. At the same time, the research shows some links between green consumption and purchasing behavior, suggesting the influence of green consumption values and orientations on sustainable and environmentally friendly consumption.

This article explores the implications of virtual social spaces for conceptualizing community engagement in the practice of architecture and design by critically analyzing multidisciplinary approaches to conceptualizing community namely space, place, and context to envision social spaces of virtual community engagement by architects and designers.

This conceptual article utilized narrative literature review as the primary method for conducting a transdisciplinary theoretical integration. First, the authors defined the metaverse as all manner of human-technological interaction. Second, the authors discussed theories of place from architecture, social geography, and human ecology and employed neoecological theory to describe the interactional processes inherent in research and practice with virtual communities. Finally, the authors documented specific types of virtual engagement strategies in architectural research and practice.

Virtual environments provide varied opportunities for effective collaborations among architects, designers, and community members. The primary strategies identified by the literature review of virtual community engagement were collaborative, augmented reality, and situated digital experiences. In addition, researchers have found that the most effective community engagement bridges interactions in the physical space and digitally mediated interactions.

The authors advocate for increased research towards understanding how the expanded availability of more complex technological tools, such as future versions of artificial intelligence (AI) software, may further layer the landscape of community engagement in ways that may be unpredictable and currently less understood. Additional research is also needed to address participants' perspectives in virtual community engagement and explore how the building of communities in the meta-context is felt, lived, and understood by those who act in them.

The availability of new technological tools and digital platforms challenges diverse professionals to expand their community-engaged practice into the metaverse. Although not every community has broadband Internet or software access, many physical locations whether community centers, libraries, schools, or one’s own home may serve as safe spaces for novel virtual engagement experiences by individuals and groups. Digital engagement can increase opportunities for involvement from persons who are home-bound, lack transportation or child-care to attend in-person community events, or may desire the anonymity afforded by virtual engagement.

Virtual environments can provide varied opportunities for effective collaboration among architects, designers, and community members by overcoming physical or nonphysical barriers to in-person engagement. For example, recent case studies of civic and community organizations have successfully integrated physical and virtual community engagement during the global COVID-19 pandemic by overcoming physical or nonphysical barriers to in-person engagement. Community development theorists have referred to such contexts as a “post-place community” in which individuals find solidarity through digital global networks.

This article theorizes virtual community engagement in the metaverse from a transdisciplinary perspective and coins the innovative concept of meta-contexts to describe a global “post-place” community. Integrating theories of place from architecture, social geography, and human ecology guides an original review of effective strategies for meta-contextual digital community engagement by architects and designers.

Student open feedback is an essential element to improve the teaching service. Comprehending the feedback collected daily may not be possible especially in a large classroom. There is needed an automated system that processes feedback and helps to recommend focused, precise points to the teacher stating the positives and negatives of a class. Also, the feedback texts are neither going to be grammatically correct nor going to consist only of English. Hence, an automated feedback processing system is essential that processes the mixed-language language text that provides crisp clear insights to the teachers, thus making effective student–teacher interaction.

This research is designed to analyse daily feedback from the students in grammarless English-Tamil mixed feedback and creates a dashboard that displays concise keywords regarding positive and negative aspects of the class. An ML-based system architecture is proposed for processing English-Tamil mixed grammarless feedback texts and validates the same with an experimental prototype and compares the results with other state-of-the-art models. This prototype classifies the text into different categories and provides the concise view with topic modelling techniques. This system is useful in progressive improvement of teaching learning process, subsequently leading to better teaching learning environment.

The proposed web-based architecture is validated with a prototype by comparing the results with other state-of-the-art models. The accuracy of the results is higher (>90%) in the proposed architecture than other models (<60%). The created teacher dashboard is highly recommendable and provides day-to-day recommendation for finetuning teaching and learning process. The web-based dashboard created for teachers enables them to interpret the student feedback with much ease due to the Machine learning algorithms used in implementing the web-based solution.

This system is designed to help the teachers to improve themselves in the teaching learning process with the feedback. The proposed system is a prototype that is initially tested with sample feedback texts obtained in sessions in postgraduate classrooms. The implementation of the prototype and analysis of teacher and student experience are presented as the immediate scope of this research work. This helps the teachers to get an overall view on the best teaching practices and what to improve. This work currently uses Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) uncased and in the increase of native language text the system may work with BERT multilingual.

This prototype will be implemented as a web-mobile based application. Students can submit their daily feedback through a mobile app, while teachers will access a dashboard that presents a concise overview generated by the proposed system architecture. The dashboard will also provide trend analysis, highlighting positive and negative aspects of the sessions. The system's effectiveness will be evaluated through a qualitative study, incorporating feedback from teachers and insights from students. This evaluation will help teachers gain a comprehensive understanding of the most effective teaching practices and areas needing improvement, thereby enhancing the teaching-learning process. The web-mobile application aims to Streamline the feedback process, making it easy for students to share their thoughts and for teachers to receive actionable insights. This study offers a clear and concise summary of student feedback and trend analysis from which the teachers can quickly identify patterns and make necessary adjustments to their teaching methods. Ultimately, this approach will foster a more responsive and effective educational environment, supporting continuous improvement and better student–teacher interactions. Further, the proposed system requires lesser technical knowledge and can be used by anyone.

A literature review has identified a critical need for a feedback processing system that functions at short intervals. Such a system is essential for providing teachers with concise, periodic summaries of students' open-ended feedback, which is vital for fostering continuous improvement in the teaching-learning process. The immediate processing of feedback, particularly when it contains English-mixed texts, is crucial for making timely adjustments that enhance both student performance and experience. By swiftly addressing concerns and reinforcing positive feedback, the system will improve student–teacher interactions, provide meaningful insights that contribute to progressive educational growth. This will help implement a feedback system that operates in these short intervals and allows for real-time monitoring and response to students' needs and experiences. Additionally, by highlighting areas of success, teachers can build on effective strategies and practices.

This research paper proposes a system architecture PSFAS: Progressive Student Feedback Analysis System with Multi Level Classification and Clustering that enables effective interaction between the student and the teacher with the findings from feedback and presenting an experimental prototype that can be incorporated into the regular teaching learning process, whether online or offline. It has been found from the literature review, that feedback processing is mostly done in the English language. This work proposes a system architecture that gives higher accuracy than other state-of-the art models for feedback texts having English-mix grammarless sentences.

Researchers have investigated best practices for forming groups capable of completing projects cohesively for years. Online group formation has increased in recent years, peaking scientific interest in the sentiment that characterizes group cohesion from the point when the group is established to the stage where specific outcomes are produced. This research contributes to understanding online group dynamics by analyzing the sentiment of university students completing multiple nine-week group course projects with implications for workplaces.

Over eight nine-week terms, sentiment analyses were conducted on students' online reflection assignments, targeting their views on group interactions during group project completion. The assignment's context was to assess individual sentiment about the group experience that could build group sentiment implications for workplaces. Adult students from diverse academic and industry disciplines at a single university were participants. Four group models were considered possible drivers of student sentiment about their group experiences.

Punctuated Equilibrium, a classic group model, defined influences like remote distances and external obligations steering student sentiment outcomes. Instructors' active facilitation of group formation and development motivated students’ positive sentiments. Findings are akin to online organizational groups’ attempts to manage remote work and other responsibilities.

This study reinforced the importance of leveraging online students' collective sentiment to inform group dynamics in professional settings. Few studies have focused on the latter directly and exclusively. The results highlighted the sentiment kinship of online academic and organizational groups, validating the focused investigation of this study.