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Vehicle allocation problems (VAPs), which are frequently confronted in many transportation activities, primarily including but not limited to full truckload freight transportation operations, induce a significant economic impact. Despite the increasing academic attention to the field, literature still fails to match the needs of and opportunities in the growing industrial practices. In particular, the literature can grow upon the ideas on sustainability, Industry 4.0 and collaboration, which shape future practices not only in logistics but also in many other industries. This review has the potential to enhance and accelerate the development of relevant literature that matches the challenges confronted in industrial problems. Furthermore, this review can help to explore the existing methods, algorithms and techniques employed to address this problem, reveal directions and generate inspiration for potential improvements.

This study provides a literature review on VAPs, focusing on quantitative models that incorporate any of the following emerging logistics trends: sustainability, Industry 4.0 and logistics collaboration.

In the literature, sustainability interactions have been limited to environmental externalities (mostly reducing operational-level emissions) and economic considerations; however, emissions generated throughout the supply chain, other environmental externalities such as waste and product deterioration, or the level of stakeholder engagement, etc., are to be monitored in order to achieve overall climate-neutral services to the society. Moreover, even though there are many types of collaboration (such as co-opetition and vertical collaboration) and Industry 4.0 opportunities (such as sharing information and comanaging distribution operations) that could improve vehicle allocation operations, these topics have not yet received sufficient attention from researchers.

The scientific contribution of this study is twofold: (1) This study analyses decision models of each reviewed article in terms of decision variable, constraint and assumption sets, objectives, modeling and solving approaches, the contribution of the article and the way that any of sustainability, Industry 4.0 and collaboration aspects are incorporated into the model. (2) The authors provide a discussion on the gaps in the related literature, particularly focusing on practical opportunities and serving climate-neutrality targets, carried out under four main streams: logistics collaboration possibilities, supply chain risks, smart solutions and various other potential practices. As a result, the review provides several gaps in the literature and/or potential research ideas that can improve the literature and may provide positive industrial impacts, particularly on how logistics collaboration may be further engaged, which supply chain risks are to be incorporated into decision models, and how smart solutions can be employed to cope with uncertainty and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of operations.

The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of conferral of protection.

One main dimension is selected and discussed: the case law of the national courts. The study focuses on the legal status of immigrants resulting from the intervention of these national courts.

The research shows that although the courts have conferred an increasing protection on immigrants, this has not challenged the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the states to decide, according to their discretionary prerogatives, which immigrants are allowed to enter and stay in their territories. Notwithstanding the differences in the general constitutional and legal structures, the research also shows that the courts of the three countries considered – France, Germany and Spain – have progressively moved towards converging solutions in protecting immigrants.

The research contributes to a better understanding of the different legal orders analysed.

The trust in participation banks depends largely on authentic dependence on Sharia, legal financial instruments and fair yet transparent distribution among account owners and banks. Taking into account the economic Islamic principles and those of mudarabah agreement, this study aims to identify problematic areas pertaining to profit sharing in addition to revealing opportunities leading to the improvement of the profit distribution system while developing a new profit distribution system proposal.

This study proposes two hypotheses (H). H1: There are partial deviations between the profit considered to be legal according to the economic principles of Islam and the practice of participation banking. H2: There are partial deviations or loss of right in practice between the mudarabah contract concluded among owners of participation account and participation banks. In-depth interview technique and review of the literature including legislation were used to determine the parameters affecting the distributed profit. The collected data was tested through comparison with the theoretical framework of the mudarabah contract.

There are two separate fund pools used in participation banks, including equity and participation accounts. Managers’ selection of pools set according to their personal goals related to balance sheet profit management may cause profit to pass between participation accounts and equity. Many issues negatively affect the distributed profits. For example, incomes from funding commissions, reserve requirements and idle funds, although they originate from participation accounts, are recorded in the bank’s income. In addition, the bank does not return the profit initially recorded in its own account to participation pools, whether or not profit.

The interviewed officials were cautious to avoid a negative perception of the sector. This made it difficult to determine the real situation of applications decided with initiative in profit distribution. Although the authorization documents have partially been published, it is still difficult to access most licensed documents. There is no independent audit report made considering the interest-free banking principles regarding the profit distribution system of participation banking. The scarcity of the literature on the subject is another limitation. The research does not cause any harm to the reputation of participation banks.

Adopting a single-pool system in line with the global practices will end the shift of right between pools while ensuring a fair and transparent system. In this system, the bank equities, other shareholders’ funds and participation accounts are collected and operated in a single pool. The pool profit and loss are distributed as per the shares in the pool. The profit per each participation account is distributed based on the share of each participation account in the pool and profit-sharing ratio.

Participation banking is expected to support the real economy by means of production, leasing, merchandising based on certain religious, ethical and contractual principles. Bringing funds of conservatives, that does not go to conventional banks for avoiding of interest, in the economy is expected to provide new sources to reduce the foreign dependency for the economy and to supply a financial alternative for the conservatives who stay away from interest-based economic activities. However, if this will represent an alternative to debt-based systems, then products, contracts, business processes and legislations driven according to interest-free banking principles should be developed.

This study introduces and analyzes a new proposal of the profit distribution system of participation banking. A similar methodology is used in interest-free banking on a global scale, especially in Malaysia, and is compatible with the profit distribution decisions in AAOIFI’s depositor accounts. However, this methodology is considered to be new as far as participation banking is concerned. The implementation of this new methodology will eliminate several problems identified in the profit distribution system of participation banks. This research provides an academic contribution to the participation banking profit distribution system and represents a reference material on the subject.

This chapter addresses the impact of gendered social capital in developing countries to understand the barriers and opportunities to women's entrepreneurship with social capital development and also to examine factors influencing the development of social capital for women and how the identified factors benefit the creation of their entrepreneurial activities. This study follows a systemic literature review to achieve the purpose of the research by examining the selected articles in both English and Turkish, followed by factor comparison between developing, developed countries, and world datasets obtained from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) database. The finding shows that social capital strongly impacts the entrepreneurial activities among women entrepreneurs in developing countries, especially in Turkey. Although the academic and practical studies on this field were started about two decades ago in Turkey, it has faced a radical increase in last 5 years and many practitioners and scholars working on these concepts. The clusters in English and Turkish resources are almost the same; however, the density and number of key terms are much lower in Turkish literature which shows a gap for Turkish researchers to publish more in this field to examine variables for better view about women entrepreneurship and social capital related to it.

Under the Directive 2011/24/EU, medical tourism and cross-border health are interrelated terms regarding the freedom to move to get the most accessible medical treatment into EU Member State within the defined procedures for reimbursement. Little known empirically regarding the efficiency of the cross-border health/medical tourism industry. This study aims to measure its efficiency in Europe for the years 2010-2014, by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA).

Data obtained from OECD and the European Core Health Indicators (ECHI), which is collecting the data through Eurostat. Eurostat collects data on health-care activities and provides data on hospital discharges, including the hospital discharges of non-residents and these include hospital discharges of in-patients and day care patients. The analysis uses “DEA.P, 2.1 for windows” by Coelli (1996).

The results show that the Members States health systems were very efficient in handling non-residents in-patients; however, when managing day cases/outpatients, the efficiency scores dropped.

The findings would have significant associations affecting intentions to revisit clinics and the destination country. In addition, will be useful to those seeking a better understanding of the cross-border health and medical tourism industry efficiency.

Extending the findings of the European Commission report (2015c) by examining how well medical tourists are informed about the decision they are making, would be of perceived value. These are important indicators at European level by helping each Member State to measure its medical tourism services.

The purpose of this study is to assess the attitudes of individuals living in Belgium and in Emirdag in regard to patient rights and the effect of cultural differences in developing the attitude. This study measures the attitudes of two groups of people living in different geographies, “individuals living in Emirdag and Individuals emigrated from Emirdag to Belgium,” and yet having the same ethnic origin, common social and cultural capital.

Implementing quantitative research, the data for the current study was obtained from a total of 1,043 participants, who were administered the Likert type “Patient Rights Attitude Scale” along with demographic questionnaire.

The total score mean of the scale is 126.09 ± 15.21 in the Emirdag group, whereas in the Belgian group, it is 129.78 ± 13.356. While the attitude with the highest mean score about patient rights in both groups observed under “the right to seek medical attention” and “the right to consent in medical and drug researches” items and thusthese items are considered as a common denominator, the two groups differed in the scale items that received the lowest average.

It is important to determine the effects of attitudes toward patient rights and cultural differences on the development of attitudes, to determine the problems in the delivery of health services and health service procurement.

The structures that direct the choices and decisions of individuals in critical subjects such as organ transplantation and euthanasia, and thus having different practices in the doctrine, can be affected by individuals and even society’s rules, beliefs and values. It was concluded that immigrant participants’ dominating culture and related beliefs, rules and values play a role in the making of decision and choice.