The fields of urban design and public health play an important role in the success and failure of the city. Research combining the two fields to improve citizens’ lives is rare, particularly in a rapidly developing city like Doha. This study highlights the urban planning efforts of the municipality of Doha city to improve the mental health of its citizens and aims to understand the impact of urban design elements on mental health by analyzing the physical form and characteristics of green urban areas in Doha. The methods employed include an observational study and a structured survey interview, where visitors’ responses to selected green urban areas are analyzed. The results show how Doha officials are working to improve the mental health of its citizens by providing accessible, child-friendly, older citizen-friendly, and equitable green urban spaces and suggesting policies that could provide more opportunities for people and the government to provide a healthier environment in Doha. The implications encompass shaping urban design strategies, raising public awareness, enhancing healthcare initiatives, and ultimately emphasizing the positive impact of well-designed green spaces for mental well-being in Doha and other Gulf countries.

Given its insular geographic location, Taiwan inherently benefits from a natural advantage in developing its shipping industry, positioning it as a critical sector for the nation’s economic advancement. The shipping industry operates within a highly competitive maritime market, wherein ocean freight forwarders provide services on a global scale, thus classifying them within the international transportation and logistics industry. The global competition from logistics peers renders the services highly substitutable. This study breaks new ground by integrating the SERVQUAL scale with advanced methodologies such as the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to assess and enhance service quality in the shipping industry. By segmenting the five dimensions of SERVQUAL, the study delineates 19 specific evaluation indicators. The expert questionnaires developed and analyzed through AHP and DEMATEL reveal a previously unidentified link between specific service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. The findings from this analysis offer crucial insights into the critical success factors (CSFs) of service quality and their causal interrelationships, thereby establishing a model for service standards. By leveraging the identified CSFs and understanding the causal relationships among these key factors, ocean freight forwarders can enhance and optimize their value propositions and resources. This proactive approach is expected to significantly improve service quality, fortify core competitiveness, and elevate customer support and satisfaction levels, ultimately leading to an increased market share and ensuring sustainable business operations.

Modified chitosan hybrids were obtained via chemical reaction of chitosan with two pyrazole aldehyde derivatives to produce two chitosan Schiff bases, Cs-SB1, and Cs-SB2, respectively. FTIR spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy confirmed both chemical structures and morphology of these Schiff bases. Thermal gravimetric analysis showed an improvement of thermal properties of these Schiff bases. Both chitosan Schiff bases were evaluated in a batch adsorption approach for their ability to remove Cu(II) ions from aqueous solutions. Energy dispersive X-ray for the Schiff bases adsorbed metal ions in various aqueous solutions was performed to confirm the existence of adsorbed metal ions on the surface substrate and their adsorptive efficiency for Cu(II) ions. Results of the batch adsorption method showed that prepared Schiff bases have good ability to remove Cu(II) ions from aqueous solutions. The Langmuir isotherm equation showed a better fit for both adsorbents with regression coefficients (R² = 0.97 and 0.99, respectively) with maximum adsorption capacity for Cu(II) of 10.33 and 39.84 mg/g for Cs-SB1 and Cs-SB2, respectively. All prepared compounds, pyrazoles and two chitosan Schiff bases, showed good antimicrobial activity against three Gram +ve bacteria, three Gram –ve bacteria and Candida albicans, with varying degrees when compared to the standard antimicrobial agents.

In this research, we explore the psychological factors that SMB owners who are micro-entrepreneurs and use SNS for entrepreneurial purposes rely on to make their self-employment decisions. Research-based on a merger of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) deals with how perceived ease of use (PEU), perceived usefulness (PU), attitude, subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC), openness to experience (OTE), and dominance contribute to people’s behavioural intention (BI) to use SNS for Data was collected from 342 SMB micro-entrepreneurs in the Delhi/NCR region of India by the means of a standardized questionnaire. Employing PLS-SEM, a partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The results point out an impact of PU, attitude, and behavioral intention, and unappealing presentations, unacceptance of an explanation, unclear mechanisms, and domination do not make any difference. The research emphasizes how technophobe’s attitude, and the perception of effectiveness would impact micro-entrepreneurs desire to avail SNS for entrepreneurship efforts. Moreover, research shows the psychological understanding based on the SNS adoption by the small business owners, micro-entrepreneurs as well as for the practitioners and policymakers who are working to enhance the capability of the SMB. More investigations should be conducted on the other personality traits and cover more nations as demographic dividends in comparison to acquire more inclusive data.

The soundscape studied has gained increasingly frequent attention across multiple disciplines, especially in tourism and leisure domain. While it has already indicated a unique soundscape provides dynamic and memorable tourism experiences, a clearly mapped perspective across different segmentations of soundscapes, both natural and acoustically created, remains missing. Therefore, a comprehensive mapping and review of soundscape studies is imperative to understand its implications for potential inbound tourism research in future. This article aimed to explore potential soundscape studies by assessing trends and developments in recent decades (2013–2023). We applied a bibliometric approach, using a PRISMA framework and under NVivo 12 Plus, VOSViewer, and Biblioshiny-R-Studio software as analytical tools. Significant yield discoveries showed that tourism soundscape research is undergoing steady growth, as evidenced by quantity of publications and citation trends. Single and multi-country international collaborations characterized by soundscape outreach research playing an influential role were highlighted. We identified multiple research themes, such as anthropogenic noise and music heritage, and pointed out how we approached this research from two perspectives: environmental/natural and manufacturing/acoustics. In our review, several keywords and predominant themes were identified, which suggested soundscape studies have recently become an increasingly popular topic in tourism research. The broad spectrum of key themes, such a tourism, tourists, sustainability, areas, and development perspectives, are evidence points of significant diversity in these topics. Most importantly, our research offers significant theoretical and conceptual implications for future direction of soundscape studies. We identified three originality main focus domains in soundscape tourism research: urban and natural environments, technological advancements, and tourists’ perceptions and behaviors.

A panel data analysis of nonlinear government expenditure and income inequality dynamics in a macroprudential policy regime was conducted on a panel of 15 emerging countries from 1985–2019, where there had been a non-prudential regime from 1985–1999 and a prudential regime from 2000–2019. The paper explored the validity of the nonlinearity between government expenditure and income inequality in the macroprudential policy regime as well as the threshold level at which excessive spending reduces income inequality using the Bayesian spatial lag panel smooth transition regression (BSPSTR) and fix effect models. The BSPSTR model was adopted due to its ability to address the problems of heterogeneity, endogeneity, and cross-section correlation in a nonlinear framework. Moreover, as the transition variable often varies across time and space, the effect of the independent variables can also be time- and space-varying. The results reveal evidence of a nonlinear effect between government spending and income inequality, where the minimum level of government spending is found to be 29.89 percent of GDP, above which expenditure reduces inequality in emerging countries. The findings confirmed an inverted U-shaped relationship. The focal policy recommendation is that fiscal policy decisions that will reinforce the need for more emphasis on education and public expenditure on education and health, as important tools for improving income inequality, are crucial for these economies. Caution is needed when introducing macroprudential policies, especially at a low level of government expenditure.