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Life conditions for most slum dwellers are deplorable, with poor socio-economic status and high rates of malnutrition and communicable diseases. Studies have shown lower intake of many nutrients in such people, but no study yet has checked the quality of diet using Healthy Eating Index (HEI) in them. This study aims to assess the quality of diet among slum dwellers of Tehran using the HEI-2015.

This cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 slum dwellers from two slums located on the border of Tehran city which is the capital of Iran. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select subjects for this study. Data on socioeconomic characteristics and 24-hours dietary recalls were obtained through face-to-face interviews with the respondents by trained personnel.

The overall diet quality of the respondents was poor, with a mean HEI score of 40.9 ± 23.7. About 84% of the participants had low overall HEI scores. A significant relation was seen in the following: the HEI and educational level (p = 0.044); the HEI and employment status (p = 0.001); and the HEI and chronic diseases (p = 0.049). There was no significant difference between the mean HEI score and marital status, welfare status and addiction status. From the findings, the diet of most of these slum dwellers needs modification. Therefore, taking measures to reduce slum dwelling and to improve the nutritional intake of this study population is needed.

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, and written informed consent was obtained from all participants.

The “environmental justice” movement has suggested that demographic inequities characterize the location of hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs). While some researchers have found evidence that TSDFs are disproportionately located in minority areas, others attribute TSDF location to non‐racial factors such as income and industrial employment.

Both univariate and multivariate techniques were used to analyse the location of TSDFs in Los Angeles County, California; the focus on one county allowed this paper to overcome the problem of “fake” addresses for TSDF sites and to introduce specific land use/zoning variables that are not used in the other studies.

Findings from the univariate results and the multivariate model reveal that: industrial land use and manufacturing employment do matter, as suggested by critics of environmental justice; income has first a positive, then a negative effect on TSDF location, a pattern that likely reflects the fact that the poorest communities have little economic activity, while wealthier communities have the economic and political power to resist negative environmental externalities; and race and ethnicity are still significantly associated with TSDF location, even when percentage African American and percentage Latino are evaluated as separate groupings.

All 82 Los Angeles County TSDFs currently listed by the California State Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) are included in the study.

Taken together, the results suggest that communities most affected by TSDFs in the Los Angeles area are working‐class and ethnic minorities located near industrial areas.

This paper represents the first work to analyse the siting of hazardous waste dump facilities and their correlation with status of surrounding residential neighbourhoods in Los Angeles county.

Compared to low-rise and mid-rise buildings, commercial high-rise buildings have severe maintenance management deficiencies due to the complex nature of the structure and building services incorporated. Previous studies have shown that implementing lean in maintenance is a recognised prominent strategy to enhance maintenance performance. Thus, this study aims to investigate how lean maintenance can be applied to improve maintenance management in commercial high-rise buildings in Sri Lanka.

This study adopted a case study method. Three commercial high-rise buildings were selected to conduct the empirical study. An expert survey is also conducted to validate the findings.

The findings of the study revealed that out of the eight cardinal types of lean maintenance waste, six are rooted in the selected cases: (i) excessive preventive maintenance, (ii) waiting (maintenance resources, tools, procuring of additional supplies and documentation and permits), (iii) transportation due to centralised maintenance, (iv) poor inventory management, (v) poor information handling and (vi) poor utilisation of labour. Then the study revealed strategies to eradicate identified lean maintenance wastes.

The findings of this study can be used to guide maintenance practitioners in implementing lean maintenance in Sri Lankan commercial high-rise buildings. Furthermore, the proposed strategies can be directly applied to mitigate identified maintenance wastes.

This paper provides information on how high-rise commercial buildings in Sri Lanka can enhance their maintenance management by mitigating lean maintenance wastes.

Takaful is a social security approach that guarantees business risks in light of shari’ah, thus playing a crucial role in human life and the economy. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence the behavioural intention of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) entrepreneurs to participate in takaful in Sri Lanka.

This study is designed quantitatively with deductive approach using the theory of planned behaviour. A total of 432 MSMEs in Sri Lanka were surveyed using convenience sampling to measure the intention to participate in takaful as a risk mitigation. The collected data were analysed through partial least square-structural equational modelling.

Attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control variables positively influenced the intention, with t-values of 3.216, 3.813 and 3.859, respectively. The influence of these variables exhibits not much difference.

This study only focuses on MSMEs and a general takaful scheme. Future researchers may consider family takaful involvement among Sri Lankan business entrepreneurs.

Takaful practitioners should gain from the entrepreneurs’ intention to participate in takaful. Findings from this study could help marketing managers to revamp their strategies to further attract the entrepreneurs and make them to understand risk they are facing and, subsequently, participate in the takaful scheme.

This paper focuses on the context of Muslim minority among pluralism, where there is no regulation for Islamic financial products and services, and under the Islamic financial market crisis. This unleashes how business owners feel about takaful system on different dimensions.

This study aims to investigate the factors affecting micro, small and medium entrepreneurs’ (MSMEs) behavioural intention to participate in takaful schemes in Sri Lanka.

This research adopted a quantitative approach using primary data from a questionnaire. Out of 470 questionnaires, 432 were collected (91.91%) from MSMEs in Kalmunai business region in Sri Lanka. The data obtained were analysed using partial least square-structural equation modelling.

This study revealed that the extension model of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) can be effectively applied to behavioural intentions towards a takaful scheme by MSMEs. Out of eight hypotheses, seven were significant, including: attitude towards behavioural intention; subjective norm; perceived behavioural control; knowledge; religiosity; income; trust in takaful as a significant influence. However, awareness of intention was not found to be significant.

This study suggests advantages for takaful providers in Sri Lanka, especially marketing departments, for enhancing sale of products, refurbishing marketing strategies and understanding the purchasing motivation of business entrepreneurs. This study guides takaful companies as to where they should concentrate to enhance market penetration.

Previous studies have concentrated on only three factors which comprise TPB. This paper’s main contribution is on the uniqueness of the Muslim minority context in a pluralistic context, providing a marketing model for takaful operators based on the different relevant dimensions.

This research intends to contribute to the literature of entrepreneurial intentions through determining the factors impacting the entrepreneurial intentions among students in different academic programs. This is in order to enhance and improve entrepreneurship-related procedures within relevant universities.

The study was conducted by a structured survey questionnaire on 261 students in the University of Hail. The questionnaire was developed based on previous studies. The proposed hypotheses were tested by the use of the structured equation modeling (SEM) via using Amos software.

The results of the current study support the theoretical integration of the model as most of the hypotheses have been accepted. The results of the survey also show that attitudes toward behavior, self-efficacy, autonomy, risk-taking, pro-activeness and competitive aggressiveness are expressively related with entrepreneurial intention. Yet, social norms and innovativeness are not considerably connected with entrepreneurial intention.

This study seeks to contribute to the relevant literature by integrating the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the entrepreneurial orientation model (EO). This is in order to identify the factors impacting the intention of entrepreneurship among Saudi university students. As the case in many studies, this present study has some limitations. The main limitation lies in that it would not be possible to generalize the study's findings. This is due to the fact the research is the outcome of examining and studying one Saudi university. Therefore, it would be better to conduct similar studies in other Saudi universities in order to generalize the findings of the study.

The study's results could be of value to policymakers and university administrators in Saudi Arabia universities by which they could be enabled to allocate resources, develop strategies and provide all requirements for the sake of improving entrepreneurial skills among university students. This comprehensive model can be used as a tool for planning and prioritizing resources in bid for providing the required support as this support would reinforce the entrepreneurial opportunity of university students. As such, students would have better thinking about entrepreneurial work and thus would be assisted in achieving their professional goals and the broader goal of nation building.

Since today's youth are viewed as the potential future entrepreneurs, they should be encouraged to achieve the Saudi Kingdom's goals through creating suitable employment opportunities for them by supporting entrepreneurship. Therefore, pointing out the factors impacting the entrepreneurial intention of students will contribute to developing the field of entrepreneurship among young people in Saudi Arabic in general. In addition, realized outcomes would create an exciting new knowledge with regard to the entrepreneurial intention among the youth at the university level.

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence Malaysian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to adopt mobile commerce (m-commerce) by integrating the constructs of Technology Acceptance Model 3 (TAM 3), Universal Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 and Technology-Organization-Environment model. Though numerous m-commerce adoption (MCA) studies have been conducted, lesser attention is paid to how hedonic motivation (HM) can influence organizational users such as SMEs. This study bridges the gap by integrating the three models to provide a new lens to guide SMEs.

To examine the factors that influence the adoption of m-commerce, the researchers collected data from SMEs in Malaysia using an online survey. The sample size of the participants was determined through the available list provided by SME Corp Malaysia. The researchers also used Krejcie and Morgan’s sample size and G * Power techniques to determine that the sample size was appropriate. The data collected were analyzed using partial least square-structural equation modeling.

The findings of this study reveal that technological factors (computer self-efficacy [CSE], result demonstrability [RD] and computer anxiety [CA]) positively and significantly influence MCA. Likewise, the organizational/environmental factors (m-commerce knowledge, pressure from trading partners and pressure from competitors) positively and significantly influence MCA. The moderating influence of HM was also achieved on the relationship between CSE and RD. However, the proposed hedonic moderating relationship between CA and the adoption of m-commerce is not significant.

This study integrates three models to explain the adoption of m-commerce among SMEs in Malaysia and tested the moderating influence of HM. The results obtained better explain the decision by the SMEs to use m-commerce.

The study critically considered how m-commerce can be adopted by SMEs in Malaysia, which previous studies have largely ignored. Considering this, the study, therefore, advances a new relationship by integrating Technology-organization-environment model with TAM 3 and the moderating influence of HM to explain MCA among SMEs. This paper is one of the few research studies to test the moderating influence of HM in this regard.

Unlike previous research that primarily utilized structural equation modelling (SEM) to evaluate safety hazards in subway projects, this research aims to utilize a hybrid approach to investigate and scrutinize the key indicators of safety hazards leading to accidents, thereby hindering the progress of subway projects in China, taking into cognizance the multiple stakeholder’s perspective.

By administering a survey questionnaire to 373 highly involved stakeholders in subway projects spanning Changsha, Beijing and Qingdao, China, our approach incorporated a four-staged composite amalgamation of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM) and artificial neural network (ANN) to develop an optimized model that determines the causal relationships and interactions among safety hazards in subway construction projects.

The optimized model delineated the influence of individual safety hazards on subway projects. The feasibility and applicability of the model developed was demonstrated on an actual subway project under construction in Changsha city. The outcomes revealed that the progress of subway projects is significantly influenced by risks associated with project management, environmental factors, subterranean conditions and technical hazards. In contrast, risks related to construction and human factors did not exhibit a significant impact on subway construction progress.

While our study provides valuable insights, it is important to acknowledge the limitation of relying on theoretical approaches without empirical validation from experiments or the field. In future research, we plan to address this limitation by assessing the SEM using empirical data. This will involve a comprehensive comparison of outcomes derived from CB-SEM with those obtained through SEM-ANN methods. Such an empirical validation process is crucial for enhancing the overall efficiency and robustness of the proposed methodologies.

The established hybrid model revealed complex non-linear connections among indicators in the intricate project, enabling the recognition of primary hazards and offering direction to improve management of safety in the construction of subways.

This paper aims to analyze the scientific trend of research on Islamic banking sustainability (IBS) through a bibliometric study. In particular, the paper extensively investigates all the articles issued through the Scopus database regarding the IBS.

The authors discovered 76 papers that met the function, subject and set requirements by using the phrase IBS. The authors used VOSviewer as an analytical tool and the Scopus website.

IBS publications were found in the period 2005–2022, and the publication trend of IBS research demonstrates that it is growing exponentially after 2018. Malaysia is the leading country in terms of productive authors, universities, number of documents, citations and collaboration research on IBS. The current research trends are summarized into five cluster maps for future research directions: sustainability measurement, sustainability practices, risk and governance, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and IBS theory. The Maqashid al Shariah approach conceptually influences the framework for constructing the dimensions and indicators used to measure the IBS.

The authors retrieved data for their research from the Scopus database; using other databases might result in totally different research patterns with this IBS bibliometric research.

The research encompasses valuable implications for Islamic banking as it offers valuable insights on how to assess the performance of IBS. Particularly, it contributes to identifying the dimensions and indicators needed to measure IBS performance. Furthermore, this research provides strategic initiatives to promote sustainable practices in Islamic banking in terms of green financing taxonomy, services, operations, risk management and governance.

This research is valuable for other scholars as it offers a foundation for the future growth of IBS research, focusing on important sustainability clusters obtained from selected reputable journals. This research is beneficial for regulators in enhancing the roadmap for establishing and enhancing long-term IBS with impacts on socio-economic, environmental and governance.

The study presents a concise review of the bibliometric study in IBS and provides recommendations for future research directions in cluster mapping of themes and subthemes. There is still insufficient research that examines the IBS, in particular, complete insights into the IBS literature review.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the asymmetric effect of oil production on environmental degradation in OPEC member countries from 1970–2019.

The authors build a nonlinear panel ARDL–PMG model using the Shin et al. (2014) nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach in panel form to assess both the short- and long-run impact of positive and negative oil production movements on CO₂ emissions.

The result demonstrates that the variables are cointegrated. According to the linear long run coefficients, oil production, FDI inflows and economic growth both have a positive and significant relationship with CO₂ emissions, implying that they deteriorate environmental quality in OPEC countries, while renewable energy has a negative relationship with CO₂, implying that increasing renewable energy improves environmental quality. The asymmetric findings prove that positive and negative shocks of oil production exert a positive effect on carbon emissions in short run and long run.

To begin with, the empirical assessments do not include all OPEC member nations; researchers are advised to resolve this constraint by looking at the economies of other OPEC members. Albeit the lack of data for other energy sources may serve as another constraint of this research, future research is expected to broaden the current framework via other energy sources such as nuclear, electricity, biomass, solar as well as wind.

The research adds to the body of knowledge as many of the prevailing studies in the literature failed to look at the asymmetric effect of oil production on the quality of environment. This is another gap in the literature that the current study is set out to fill. This study adds oil production as an explanatory variable and helps to extend the existing literature for OPEC countries, which could propose a solution to deal with ensuing environmental issues.