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Floods are common natural disasters worldwide, frequently causing loss of lives and huge economic and environmental damages. A spatial vulnerability mapping approach incorporating multi-criteria at the local scale is essential for deriving detailed vulnerability information for supporting flood mitigation strategies. This study developed a spatial multi-criteria-integrated approach of flood vulnerability mapping by using geospatial techniques at the local scale. The developed approach was applied on Kalapara Upazila in Bangladesh. This study incorporated 16 relevant criteria under three vulnerability components: physical vulnerability, social vulnerability and coping capacity. Criteria were converted into spatial layers, weighted and standardised to support the analytic hierarchy process. Individual vulnerability component maps were created using a weighted overlay technique, and then final vulnerability maps were produced from them. The spatial extents and levels of vulnerability were successfully identified from the produced maps. Results showed that the areas located within the eastern and south-western portions of the study area are highly vulnerable to floods due to low elevation, closeness to the active channel and more social components than other parts. However, with the integrated coping capacity, western and south-western parts are highly vulnerable because the eastern part demonstrated particularly high coping capacity compared with other parts. The approach provided was validated by qualitative judgement acquired from the field. The findings suggested the capability of this approach to assess the spatial vulnerability of flood effects in flood-affected areas for developing effective mitigation plans and strategies.

In Australia, droughts are recurring events that tremendously affect environmental, agricultural and socio-economic activities. Southern Queensland is one of the most drought-prone regions in Australia. Consequently, a comprehensive drought vulnerability mapping is essential to generate a drought vulnerability map that can help develop and implement drought mitigation strategies. The study aimed to prepare a comprehensive drought vulnerability map that combines drought categories using geospatial techniques and to assess the spatial extent of the vulnerability of droughts in southern Queensland. A total of 14 drought-influencing criteria were selected for three drought categories, specifically, meteorological, hydrological and agricultural. The specific criteria spatial layers were prepared and weighted using the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process. Individual categories of drought vulnerability maps were prepared from their specific indices. Finally, the overall drought vulnerability map was generated by combining the indices using spatial analysis. Results revealed that approximately 79.60% of the southern Queensland region is moderately to extremely vulnerable to drought. The findings of this study were validated successfully through the receiver operating characteristics curve (ROC) and the area under the curve (AUC) approach using previous historical drought records. Results can be helpful for decision makers to develop and apply proactive drought mitigation strategies.

This study aims to examine the impact of energy consumption, i.e., coal and gas, on environmental sustainability by utilizing CO2 emissions as a proxy to emphasize Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices in the electricity supply company of Malaysia. To do so, we collect time series data from Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) Sustainability Reports spanning 2016–2021. Since the data is short time series data, this study deploys the Prais-Winsten (AR1) regression technique, which is able to produce robust estimates from the short data. Besides, this method is also able to overcome the issues of heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation issues in the dataset. Additionally, we also employ the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression method to check the robustness of our estimation. The findings of the study reveal that energy consumption, i.e., coal and gas, strongly affects the environmental sustainability channel through CO2 emissions. The result indicates that the electricity supply company of Malaysia still aggravates the environmental degradation using coal and gas in energy production, while the study also shows from the long-run trends that the sector has considerably decreased the CO2 emissions in recent years by 0.60%. Since the emission is still significant, this study emphasizes the need for a cautious approach to energy sources in order to reduce environmental effects. The study suggests that policymakers should review the existing energy use and CO2 emissions policy to strengthen environmental sustainability and ESG standards in Malaysia’s electricity generation industry, reduce dependency on fossil fuels, and hasten the adoption of renewable energy sources.

This study aims to investigate the customers’ perceptions of Islamic banking services and their impact on satisfaction and word of mouth (WOM) with others. This study designs the bootstrapping procedures using a partial least square method to test path coefficient results. Structured questionnaires were distributed among clients of Islamic banks in Dhaka city, where 377 responses were collected for data analysis. The findings revealed that there is a highly significant relationship between security and customers’ perception. Ethical responsibility and religious value have a positive and significant impact on customers’ perception whereas benefit has a negative significant impact on customers’ perception. Findings from this study also indicated that customers’ perceptions mediate the effect of ethical responsibility, religious value, benefit, and security on satisfaction. In addition, customers’ satisfaction mediates the effect of customers’ perception and WOM. These findings can promote managers of Islamic banks to build customer satisfaction and WOM with Islamic banking services, and attain competitive advantage that may lead Islamic banks to succeed in the competitive business. This study also provides new insights into customers’ WOM with others about Islamic banking services. This knowledge could assist Islamic banks to understand the customers’ perceptions that would increase satisfaction and in turn, contribute to WOM with others in determining where would be best to target marketing attention of Islamic banking services with limited resources.

Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to sea-level rise and other climate-induced extreme events, such as flooding, storm surge, and salinity intrusion. The south-western coastal region of Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to salinity intrusion caused by cyclone induced storm surges and coastal floods. Salinity intrusion endanger land productivity by increasing both soil and surface water salinity. Detailed risk assessment using spatial mapping approach can contribute to mitigating the effects of salinity intrusion on natural capital and the environment. In this study, we established and evaluated a spatial multi-criteria approach for mapping the risk levels of areas to salinity intrusion impacts using field data and geospatial techniques at the local scale. We evaluated the viability of the proposed approach using Khulna District, a major coastal city and saline prone area in the south-western Bangladesh. We considered three risk components (i.e. vulnerability, exposure and hazard) with 16 relevant criteria for the study. For each criterion, an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to build and weight spatial raster map layers. Individual maps for each risk component were generated using a weighted sum technique, and lastly, a risk map was created by combining those. Our generated maps correctly identified relevant spatial dimensions as well as risk levels (i.e. very-high to very-low). The outcomes of our study suggest that the southern (east and west) parts of the study area are mostly susceptible to salinity intrusion due to higher storm surge impacts, lower elevation, and land use patterns than other parts. We validate our findings using a qualitative and quantitative approach. We believe that this novel approach would be useful to create risk maps that policymakers and relevant stakeholders could potentially use to evaluate risks posed by flood induced salinity intrusion in coastal regions of Bangladesh and elsewhere with similar geo-climatic context.

Groundwater is one of the most dynamic and renewable natural resources found in the earth’s crust. A spatio-temporal assessment of groundwater potential zone (GWPZ) incorporating different seasons is essential to generate detailed information of groundwater distribution to maintain sustainable management and mitigate the drought consequences. This present study aimed at developing a spatio-temporal groundwater mapping approach by considering climatic factors implementing different bivariate statistic models, namely, frequency ratio (FR), Shannon’s entropy (SE), and weights of evidence. The developed approach was applied in the drought-prone area of Bangladesh to map spatio-temporal variation of GWPZ. Eighteen (18) conditioning factors including six climatic criteria under different thematic components were used, and the produced potential maps were then categorized into five classes for illustrating the spatial view, and all of them were evaluated through the method of receiver operating characteristics considering the validation wells (30%) data. The bivariate statistics models were found highly effective for both Kharif (wet) and Rabi (dry) seasons and suggest that the northeastern part of the study area, namely Bogra, Sirajganj, Pabna, and Joypurhat districts, have adequate groundwater availability; in contrast, the western part covering Chapainawabganj, Naogaon, and Rajshahi district shows scarcity of groundwater. A slight fluctuation observed for all models indicates high availability of groundwater in the Kharif season because of different climatic factors. Besides, the area under the curve score suggests that the FR model was more accurate for both season, and conversely the SE model was found less efficient to predict GWPZ. The findings suggest that the proposed approach is highly significant in mapping spatio-temporal GWPZ to formulate sustainable management strategies and to mitigate future drought consequences.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have an important role to play in the development of the country. A strong SME sector contributes highly to the economy, contributing to the gross domestic product, by reducing the level of unemployment, reduction in poverty levels and promotion of entrepreneurship activity. In South Africa (SA), the growth of SMEs and prevalence of SMEs is significantly low. Therefore, the aim of the study is to identify the internal and external factors affecting the performance of SMEs in KwaZulu-Natal, SA. This was a cross-sectional study conducted among 74 SMEs owners/managers who were members of the Durban Chamber of Commerce via online using anonymous questionnaire. The results revealed technological advancement would improve the performance of the business. With regards to challenge, the majority of the respondents viewed competition as a major challenge. Almost all the respondent indicated that crime and corruption affecting business performance. Competition was the only factor amongst the studied internal and external factors that revealed a significant association with the performance of SMEs in KwaZulu-Natal (p = 0.011). SMEs need to recognize they must prepare for both domestic

Introduction Meta-analyses on breast cancer determinants in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including upper-middle-income countries (UMICs), often produce fragmented, context-specific findings. This umbrella review provides a consolidated synthesis to identify consistent risk factors and strengthen the evidence base for guiding targeted public health strategies. Methods and materials In accordance with PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, we conducted a systematic search for meta-analyses across multiple databases. Study quality was assessed using the AMSTAR 2 (A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews) tool. Data were analyzed using STATA version 14, applying a random-effects model to estimate pooled effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals. Forest plots were used to visualize determinants. Publication bias was assessed through funnel plots and Egger’s test, while heterogeneity was evaluated using the I-squared (I²) statistic and Galbraith plots. Sensitivity analysis was performed to assess small-study effects. Results Out of 1,515 publications reviewed, 35 met the inclusion criteria. Eight determinants of breast cancer showed convincing evidence under the random-effects model: being overweight (POR = 1.16, 95% CI: 1.09–1.23), oral contraceptive use (POR = 1.19, 95% CI: 1.11–1.27), family history of breast cancer (POR = 2.26, 95% CI: 1.84–2.67), age ≥ 40 years (POR = 1.82, 95% CI: 1.60–2.05), smoking history (POR = 1.22, 95% CI: 1.11–1.34), exposure to air pollution (POR = 1.03, 95% CI: 1.01–1.05), higher fruit and vegetable consumption (POR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.71–0.92), and history of night work (POR = 1.14, 95% CI: 1.02–1.25). Conclusions This umbrella review identified eight key breast cancer risk factors. Non-modifiable factors like age ≥ 40 and family history, along with modifiable factors such as overweight, smoking, oral contraceptive use, air pollution, and night shift work, increased the odds of breast cancer. Adequate fruit and vegetable intake was linked to reduced odds, suggesting a protective effect. We recommend that public health strategies promote healthy lifestyles and target high-risk groups through early screening and awareness campaigns, using evidence-based interventions to reduce the breast cancer burden.

Cervical cancer is a serious public health problem in South Africa. Even though the screening is free in health facilities in South Africa, the Pap smear uptake is very low. The objective of the study is to investigate the knowledge and beliefs of female university students in South Africa. A cross sectional study was conducted among university women in South Africa to elicit information about knowledge and beliefs, and screening history. A total of 440 students completed the questionnaire. The average age of the participants was 20.39 years (SD  = 1.71 years). Regarding cervical cancer, 55.2% (n = 243) had ever heard about it. Results indicated that only 15% (22/147) of the students who had ever had sex and had heard about cervical cancer had taken a Pap test. Pearson correlation analysis showed that cervical cancer knowledge had a significantly negative relationship with barriers to cervical cancer screening. Susceptibility and seriousness score were significantly moderately correlated with benefit and motivation score as well as barrier score. Self-efficacy score also had a moderate correlation with benefit and motivation score. Students who had had a Pap test showed a significantly lower score in barriers to being screened compared to students who had not had a Pap test. This study showed that educated women in South Africa lack complete information on cervical cancer. Students who had had a Pap test had significantly lower barriers to cervical cancer screening than those students who had not had a Pap test.

Despite the availability of various clinical trials that used different diagnostic methods to identify diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN), no reliable studies that prove the associations among diagnostic parameters from two different methods are available. Statistically significant diagnostic parameters from various methods can help determine if two different methods can be incorporated together for diagnosing DSPN. In this study, a systematic review, meta-analysis, and trial sequential analysis (TSA) were performed to determine the associations among the different parameters from the most commonly used electrophysiological screening methods in clinical research for DSPN, namely, nerve conduction study (NCS), corneal confocal microscopy (CCM), and electromyography (EMG), for different experimental groups. Electronic databases (e.g., Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar) were searched systematically for articles reporting different screening tools for diabetic peripheral neuropathy. A total of 22 studies involving 2394 participants (801 patients with DSPN, 702 controls, and 891 non-DSPN patients) were reviewed systematically. Meta-analysis was performed to determine statistical significance of difference among four NCS parameters, i.e., peroneal motor nerve conduction velocity, peroneal motor nerve amplitude, sural sensory nerve conduction velocity, and sural sensory nerve amplitude (all p < 0.001); among three CCM parameters, including nerve fiber density, nerve branch density, and nerve fiber length (all p < 0.001); and among four EMG parameters, namely, time to peak occurrence (from 0 to 100% of the stance phase) of four lower limb muscles, including the vastus lateralis (p < 0.001), tibialis anterior (p = 0.63), lateral gastrocnemius (p = 0.01), and gastrocnemius medialis (p = 0.004), and the vibration perception threshold (p < 0.001). Moreover, TSA was conducted to estimate the robustness of the meta-analysis. Most of the parameters showed statistical significance between each other, whereas some were statistically nonsignificant. This meta-analysis and TSA concluded that studies including NCS and CCM parameters were conclusive and robust. However, the included studies on EMG were inconclusive, and additional clinical trials are required.