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Purpose In the present context of a health-concious society, management of pharmaceutical supply chains has become more complex because it involves the life-saving interest of human being and requires the participation of different stakeholders such as pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, customers, information service providers and regulatory agencies. Limited research is available in the area of pharmaceutical supply chains. This paper aims to find the gaps in the literature by reviewing research papers on different strategic issues of supply chain management in the pharmaceutical sector. Design/methodology/approach In total, 136 research papers, mainly from refereed international journals, were reviewed to identify the issues of supply chain management (SCM) in the pharmaceutical supply chain. On the basis of a review, gaps are identified and research agenda is proposed. Findings It is observed from review that the pharmaceutical sector is not widely researched in developing countries because of many complexities in this supply chain. The share of pharmaceutical firms in the global market is also not very significant. Based on an extensive review of pharmaceutical supply chains, research gaps are identified in different areas such as inventory management, new product development, process development, capacity planning, network design, plant design, pipeline and development management, outsourcing logistics activities, reverse logistics, Lean manufacturing, green SCM and implementation of E-business processes and performance management. These strategic issues have been further classified into three broad categories, i.e. resources, processes and performance. Originality/value This paper explores major strategic areas of pharmaceutical supply chains for research. Findings of the paper will be highly useful for researchers to decide direction of future research.

The Agri-food Supply Chains (AFSC) dealing with perishable items have suffered a lot due to the COVID 19 pandemic. During this uncertain time, developing resiliency has become a priority for management. Therefore, the main purpose of the study is to explore the impact of COVID-19 on AFSC and the possible strategies for improving the resilience of the AFSC. Impacts on AFSC and possible strategies are explored through the literature review and experts' opinions. The importance rating of impacts of COVID-19 on AFSC is determined using the Best-Worst Method (BWM). These impacts are further correlated with the strategies for improving the resilience of AFSC using Quality Function Deployment (QFD). The findings of the study will help farmers, food processors, distributors, and retailers to maintain the uninterrupted flow of food items from farmers to end-users during the uncertain business environment. It will also contribute to formulating effective policies by the government and other stakeholders for improving the resilience of AFSCs.

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This study explores children's attitudes toward individuals with special needs in Greece and in the United States. A total of 196 kindergarten-age children participated in the study. Children's attitudes were examined using the Acceptance Scale for Kindergartners-Revised (ASK-R) and were further explored with the use of an open-ended interview. In addition, the Inventory of Disability Representation (IDR) was used to collect information about how individuals with special needs are represented in school and classroom environments through books, displays, materials and curriculum. The results indicated that children in Greece and the United States were accepting of individuals with special needs. Also, children attending inclusive kindergartens held more positive attitudes when compared with children attending non-inclusive kindergartens. Results from the interviews provided further information that contributes to the understanding of children's perceptions of people with special needs and the reasons why children become more or less favourably disposed towards individuals with special needs. Finally, IDR results indicated that the classrooms in Greece had low representations of individuals with special needs compared with US classrooms, which had moderate and high representations of individuals with disabilities in the classroom and school environments.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into the use of an integrated approach of fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (fuzzy AHP) and TOPSIS in evaluating the performance of global third party logistics service providers for effective supply chain management. Design/methodology/approach -In this study, the integration of fuzzy AHP with TOPSIS is proposed in determining the relative importance (weight) of criteria and then ranking of 3PLs. Findings -Findings show that the logistics cost and service quality are two most important criteria for performance rating of 3PLs. Deciding the relative importance of various criteria for 3PLs evaluation is a complex task. The superiority of one criterion over the other varies from person to person and firm to firm. Therefore, to capture the variability in decision fuzzy extended AHP is very useful tool. Finally, the preference raking of alternatives are found using TOPSIS. Research limitations/implications -Fuzzy AHP is a complex methodology and requires more numerical calculations than the traditional AHP and hence it increases the effort. But in this paper single stage fuzzy AHP is used to simplify the process. Fuzzy AHP is integrated with TOPSIS for preference ranking of 3PL, which provides a good methodology to rank 3PLs. Originality/value -There is a lack of research in the literature to deal directly with the uncertainty of human decisions in evaluating the relative importance of multiple criteria. Therefore, fuzzy AHP is an appropriate methodology to find the relative importance of the criteria to rank the 3PLs using TOPSIS.

The results of two studies are presented: (a) an examination of the reliability of the Acceptance Scale for Kindergartners with a sample of non-Caucasian, low socioeconomic status (SES) children, and (b) the efficacy of an intervention designed to promote acceptance of young children with disabilities with this new sample. Results indicate that the Acceptance Scale for Kindergarten—Revised is reliable and that various components of a special friends intervention yield differential results. Specifically, results indicate that children exposed to individual components of the intervention had short-term gains in acceptance of individuals with disabilities, while children exposed to the whole intervention had short-term and long-term gains in acceptance. Exposure to the whole program is more effective than any of the individual components in producing greater changes in levels of acceptance of young children with disabilities.