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This special issue of Business Systems Research (SI of the BSR) is being co-published by the Slovenian Society INFORMATIKA – Section for Operational Research (SSI -SOR). It focuses on recent advances in Operations Research and Management Science (OR / MS), with a particular emphasis on linking OR / MS with other areas of quantitative and qualitative methods in the context of a multidisciplinary framework. The ten papers that were chosen for this Special Issue of the BSR present advancements and new techniques (methodology) in the field of Operations Research (OR), as well as their application in a variety of fields, including risk management, mathematical programming, game theory, gravity, spatial analysis, logistics, circular economy, continuous improvement, sustainability, e-commerce, forecasting, Gaussian processes, linear regression, multi-layer perceptron, and machine learning.

Background: Ageing and shrinking of the European population influence the shrinking of central places and the hinterland of cities in a spatial structure. Migration also influences the shrinking or growing of spatial units. Various factors influence migration and, thus, spatial units’ demographic, social and economic stability. The age structure of citizens in a spatial unit may change not only due to population ageing but also because these factors influence the migration flows of different cohorts differently, which has not been studied so far.

Background: Regions at the level of NUTS 3, which is a system used in the EU for various analyses and statistical reports, can be defined as functional regions in terms of labour markets, education areas, and supply markets.

Background: Functional regions are abstract, uniformly defined territorial units that form an important basis for many development strategies of a country or a region.

This special issue of Business Systems Research (SI of the BSR) is co-published by the Slovenian Society INFORMATIKA – Section for Operational Research (SSI-SOR) and highlights recent advances in Operations Research and Management Science (OR /MS), with a focus on linking OR /MS with other areas of quantitative and qualitative methods in a multidisciplinary framework. Eleven papers selected for this SI of the BSR present improvements and new techniques (methodology) in Operations Research (OR) and their application in various fields of economics, business, spatial science, smart mobility, higher education, human resources, environment, agriculture and social networks.

Walkable access is recognised as one of the most important factors for deciding to walk instead of using other modes of transport. Distance has been less accurately taken into consideration in previous walking accessibility measures, however, as they are often based on an isotropic approach or on a fixed distance threshold. The objective of this paper is to present a method of modelling continuous walking accessibility to different amenities in a city, with an integrated network-based and distance-decay approach, applied to a case study of the city of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The approach is based on a web survey to obtain data on acceptable walking distances to different types of amenities. Several distance decay functions were analysed for each type of amenity from the cumulative frequency of responses. The best fitting functions were used to model the walking accessibility surfaces for individual amenities in the network, representing five domains (retail, services, recreation, education and transportation) and an overall walking accessibility index. Despite certain limitations and a further need to assess the validity of the methods, our distance-decay network-based approach is more accurate than the isotropic or even network-based modelling of walking distances in continuous or threshold approaches, as it enables the researcher to take into account the differences in propensities to walk to different amenities. The results can be used by city authorities and planners for implementing actions to improve walking accessibility in the most problematic areas.

Background: In most countries, data on migration refer only to flows between administratively or statistically defined zones that are changing over time. When different numbers, sizes, and shapes of areas are chosen for analysis of internal migration, different results are generated. This problem is recognised as the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP).

Background Determining the location, boundaries and areas of land properties accurately in the land cadastre is essential. The named data are provided using coordinates, acquired from field measurements. Since 2008, the Slovenian land cadastre claims positioning in the national realization of the ETRS89, so the GNSS use is practically indispensable. Objectives: Contrary to real-time, we can change parameters in GNSS post-processing. The aim of this paper is to simulate different measurement conditions for GNSS in order to determine how to acquire the best possible coordinates for further use in land area calculation. Methods/Approach: Simulations of obstacles near points followed the increasing of the cut-off angle. Furthermore, shortening the observation interval resulted in different occupation duration. The final condition evaluation for coordinate quality acquisition followed from fuzzy logic. Results: The results show that for short baselines, occupation duration is the most important factor in acquiring high quality coordinates and avoiding the multipath. Differences in coordinates from specific strategies can sometimes exceed the tolerance and evidently affect the area calculation. Conclusions: The findings confirm that only good measurement conditions lead to high quality coordinates and well-defined areas of land properties, which are the fundamental factor in relation to the issues of property valuation and assessing land taxes or rents.

Background: Hierarchical functional regions (FRs) can be calculated using data on interactions between basic spatial units (BSUs) and a hierarchical aggregation procedure. However, the results depend on the selected system of initial BSUs. In spatial sciences, this is known as the zonation effect, which is one of the effects of the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP). Objectives: In this paper, we analyse the influence of the zonation effect on a system of hierarchical functional regions. Methods/Approach: We compared two systems of hierarchical functional regions of Slovenia modelled by the Intramax aggregation procedure using the inter-municipal labour commuting flows for the same year, but for two different initial sets of municipalities. Besides, we have introduced a new measure to compare systems of hierarchical FRs. Results: The results show that the zonation effect has an influence on hierarchical functional regions. The clustering comparison measure suggested here is a metric measure, which is appropriate for comparing hierarchical FRs. Conclusions: The zonation effect has influence on hierarchical FRs. The clustering comparison measure suggested in this paper is easy to interpret, but it should be adjusted for the number of clusterings

Background: Intramax is a hierarchical aggregation procedure for dealing with the multi-level specification problem and with the association issue of data set reduction, but it was used as a functional regionalization procedure many times in the past.

The use of different objective functions in hierarchical aggregation procedures is examined in this paper. Specifically, we analyse the use of the original Intramax objective function, the sum-of-flows objective function, the sum-of-proportions-to-intra-regional-flows objective function, Smart’s weighted interaction index, the first and second CURDS weighted interaction indices, and Tolbert and Killian’s interaction index. The results of the functional regionalisation have been evaluated by self-containment statistics, and they show that the use of the original Intramax procedure tends to delineate operationally the most persuasive and balanced regions that, regarding the intra-regional flows, homogeneously cover the analysed territory. The other objective functions give statistically better but operationally less suitable results. Functional regions modelled using the original Intramax procedure were compared to the regions at NUTS 2 and NUTS 3 levels, as well as to administrative units in Slovenia. We conclude that there are some promising directions for further research on functional regionalisation using hierarchical aggregation procedures.

Background: Aging is one of the most serious problems that most developed countries are facing in the 21st century. In the European Union, Member States are responsible for the planning, funding and administration of health care and social protection systems. Local authorities and state governments should undertake research toward developing an appropriate array of community-based care services for old people. Objectives: This study analyses the regions of Slovenia for servicing old people in the 2000-2010 time horizon. Methods/Approach: Sets of functional regions were modelled for each year in the analysed period using the Intramax method. Functional regions were evaluated based on the attractiveness of central places for labour commuters and the propensity to commute between regions. Results: The results show that in addition to the nominally declared regional centres of Slovenia, there are also some other local centres that should be potentially included in the functional areas for servicing old people. Conclusions: The results suggest that the regionalization into seven functional regions is the most convenient for servicing old people in the region. Furthermore, some additional functional regions at a lower level are suggested.

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This article is focused on finding problems in land use domain in the areas of protected natural and cultural heritage. In the paper, the influence of special regulation in the natural and cultural protected areas on land management is presented. The paper gives an overview on history of cultural heritage and nature protection initiatives in Slovenia and provides a review on basic EU and international initiatives, conventions in this field. For the case of Slovenian rural land market, it highlights the problem of complex institutional regulations relating to land management in the protected areas, which affect mostly local people. Here, the impact of the protected regimes, the case of pre-emption right, on land management and consequently spatial development in local communities is stressed, which is an important topic in particular in less developed regions since restriction of land use often means more complex, costly and time lasting procedures in land management and less opportunities as the consequence.

The paper presents the results ofa study to define the current size and location of workplaces and business entities in the area. The research was conducted in three stages. In the first step, the analysis of the size and distribution of workplaces according to the municipalities in the Republic of Slovenia for the 2007-2019 period was carried out. In the second step, the size and distribution ofbusiness entities in the space were examined. In the third step, a more detailed analysis was carried out in the test area of the Osrednjeslovenska statistical region, based on: the location in Ljubljana Urban Municipality (hereinafter referred to as MOL), in the municipalities directly bordering MOL and in the other municipalities of the Osrednjeslovenska statistical region. At this stage we also focused on the sector ofactivity of business entities. A strong upward trend in workplaces was found in only a ftw major urban centres along the motorway junction, especially in MOL The same applies to the concentration of business entities. All this suggests that the existing practice of planning activities in physical space does not follow the strategic orientations of spatial acts, which could better control the spatial processes and their consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]