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In this research work, the general form of reliability measures, which include availability, mean time to failure (MTTF), and sensitivity analysis, are investigated with their graphical representation, which would help designers and engineers improve the reliability of the system. Along with reliability assessment, a mathematical model is developed and solved to achieve the minimum cost of the system as well as maximum reliability.

In the proposed work, a general model of a solar seed sowing machine is considered for reliability evaluation using the Markov model process. The proposed system is a series-parallel arrangement of components where three components, namely the solar panel, batteries and direct current (DC) motor, are connected in series while all the operators are connected in parallel. The implemented Markov model approach assesses several parameters of reliability, which opens the scope for improvement in reliability and other measures like mean time to failure (MTTF) and sensitivity of the proposed system. So that the machine can deliver the desired output on the field. Also, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is applied to optimize the cost of the system with the desired level of reliability.

Implementation of PSO provides the optimal cost for the proposed system with a predetermined level of reliability, which shows the relationship between reliability and cost of the system. Also, the Markov process approach provides the availability function, reliability function, reliability at different time values, MTTF and sensitivity of the proposed system.

This work evaluates the crucial characteristics of reliability for the proposed solar seed sowing machine using the Markov model which is a stochastic model. The assessment of reliability measures such as MTTF, availability and sensitivity plays a vital role in measuring and improving the performance of the machine in the actual environment. Examining the data obtained in this research is of great importance for the manufactures and system designers. Also, the powerful optimization technique PSO is implemented to solve a non-linear mixed-integer programming problem that provides the optimal cost for the system with desired reliability.

This research introduces an innovation strategy aimed at bolstering the reliability of a renewable energy resource, which is hybrid energy systems, through the application of a metaheuristic algorithm. The growing need for sustainable energy solutions underscores the importance of integrating various energy sources effectively. Concentrating on the intermittent characteristics of renewable sources, this study seeks to create a highly reliable hybrid energy system by combining photovoltaic (PV) and wind power.

To obtain efficient renewable energy resources, system designers aim to enhance the system’s reliability. Generally, for this purpose, the reliability redundancy allocation problem (RRAP) method is utilized. The authors have also introduced a new methodology, named Reliability Redundancy Allocation Problem with Component Mixing (RRAP-CM), for optimizing systems’ reliability. This method incorporates heterogeneous components to create a nonlinear mixed-integer mathematical model, classified as NP-hard problems. We employ specially crafted metaheuristic algorithms as optimization strategies to address these challenges and boost the overall system performance.

The study introduces six newly designed metaheuristic algorithms. Solve the optimization problem. When comparing results between the traditional RRAP method and the innovative RRAP-CM method, enhanced reliability is achieved through the blending of diverse components. The use of metaheuristic algorithms proves advantageous in identifying optimal configurations, ensuring resource efficiency and maximizing energy output in a hybrid energy system.

The study’s findings have significant social implications because they contribute to the renewable energy field. The proposed methodologies offer a flexible and reliable mechanism for enhancing the efficiency of hybrid energy systems. By addressing the intermittent nature of renewable sources, this research promotes the design of highly reliable sustainable energy solutions, potentially influencing global efforts towards a more environmentally friendly and reliable energy landscape.

The research provides practical insights by delivering a comprehensive analysis of a hybrid energy system incorporating both PV and wind components. Also, the use of metaheuristic algorithms aids in identifying optimal configurations, promoting resource efficiency and maximizing reliability. These practical insights contribute to advancing sustainable energy solutions and designing efficient, reliable hybrid energy systems.

This work is original as it combines the RRAP-CM methodology with six new robust metaheuristics, involving the integration of diverse components to enhance system reliability. The formulation of a nonlinear mixed-integer mathematical model adds complexity, categorizing it as an NP-hard problem. We have developed six new metaheuristic algorithms. Designed specifically for optimization in hybrid energy systems, this further highlights the uniqueness of this approach to research.

The case aims to deal with multigenerational entrepreneurship. The family business of sports goods was initiated by Yashpal Aggarwal and his friends in the 1950s. Yashpal acquired the art of doing business and started initially with trading of sporting goods in Mumbai. Yashpal had three sons, Ashok, Ashwini and Rajesh, who ventured into sports trading business as well. After the demise of Yashpal, Ashok shifted to Jalandhar and started a manufacturing unit, producing roller skates. Ashwini, being entrepreneurial and innovative, had always desired to professionalise the business and hence started with Okini Sports. Okini Sports emerged as the first organised professional sports mall in India.

Based on case research, individual interviews at different levels, testing the case several times and filling the case gaps during the process to authenticate information, multiple sources of information have been used.

Businesses largely compete on the basis of available talent, competency and capability. Family businesses must be open to induct competent people within the family with the required skills to lead the company. If a family nurtures a member with requisite skills, values, to keep shareholders, key customers, and suppliers loyal to the business, then family leadership is the best option. As the business grows in dimension, differential capabilities are required to run the business competitively, hence, inducting talented individuals as professionals is a better option. A family must be realistic about the talents available internally.

This case is restricted to sports family business entrepreneurship in the context of India, but has a great learning towards multigenerational entrepreneurship.

The case is original with the family in its fourth generation, the youngest looking to diversify and professionalize the business, set his family dreams of setting up the biggest sports mall in India.

Agriculture, since time immemorial, has been a major sector in reducing poverty, accelerating economic activities and source of sustainability of a nation. As most of the youth in the 21st century are targeting the youth's career in the non-agricultural sector, attracting and involving the youths in agribusinesses is the need of the hour. In this regard, the research tries to understand the awareness and involvement of youth farmers in agripreneurship in Western Nepal.

Using a structured questionnaire, data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. On the basis of descriptive and inferential analysis, the ordered logit model is employed in the study. The research is based on explanatory research design through identifying farmers' awareness of agriculture entrepreneurship from 324 farmers of Bedkot Municipality, Kanchanpur, Nepal.

Study findings have shown that agricultural knowledge with overall awareness is statistically significant. Ordered logistic regression indicated that sex has somehow influenced technical and entrepreneur skills while agriculture information highly influenced education and training. The result shows that agricultural training is still the requirement of one-fourth of the farmers, whereas another quarter of farmers need subsidies.

The study suggests that in order to enhance awareness, training, subsidy, market management and development program are widely needed. In the backdrop of declining agro-products and food security challenges, the study targets to offer an understanding to policymakers and stakeholders on addressing the dire need of agripreneurship among the youths around the world.

The study summarizes the state of knowledge of agripreneurship of Nepalese farmers, identifies emerging issues and policy implications and priorities for future applied research.

Currently, waste is regarded as a symptom of inefficiency. The generation of waste is a human activity, not a natural one. Currently, landfilling and incinerating wastes are common waste management techniques; but the use of these methods, in addition to wasting raw materials, causes damage to the environment, water, soil, and air. In the new concept of “Zero Waste” (ZW), waste is considered a valuable resource. A vital component of the methodology includes creating and managing items and procedures that limit the waste volume and toxicity and preserve and recover all resources rather than burning or burying them. With ZW, the end of one product becomes the beginning of another, unlike a linear system where waste is generated from product consumption. A scientific treatment technique, resource recovery, and reverse logistics may enable the waste from one product to become raw material for another, regardless of whether it is municipal, industrial, agricultural, biomedical, construction, or demolition. This chapter discusses the concept of zero landfills and zero waste and related initiatives and ideas; it also looks at potential obstacles to put the ZW concept into reality. Several methods are presented to investigate and evaluate efficient resource utilization for maximum recycling efficiency, economic improvement through resource minimization, and mandatory refuse collection. One of the most practical and used approaches is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, which is based on green engineering and the cradle-to-cradle principle; the LCA technique is used in most current research, allowing for a complete investigation of possible environmental repercussions. This approach considers the entire life cycle of a product, including the origin of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, usage, and final disposal, or recycling. Using a life cycle perspective, all stakeholders (product designers, service providers, political and legislative agencies, and consumers) may make environmentally sound and long-term decisions.

The use of the software package mini‐micro CDS/ISIS for the creation of the “Myco Database” is discussed. The design, development of the database and sorting of records are described step by step. Details of the print format and sample printout of the printed version of the directory are given.

The purpose of the study is to identify the factors affecting the entrepreneur's choice of the dairy value chain and evaluate the impact of the value chain on farm performance (profit).

Primary data were collected from dairy entrepreneurs in India, covering nine states. A multinomial treatment effect model (controlling for selection bias and endogeneity) was used to evaluate the impact of the choice of the value chain on entrepreneurs' profit.

Dairy entrepreneurs operating in any recognized value chain other than the value chain driven by the consumer household realize a comparatively lesser profit. Dairy farmers have established direct linkages with customers in urban areas – who could pay premium prices for safe and quality milk. Food safety compliance is positively associated with profit and entrepreneurs (who have undergone formal training in dairying) preferred partnerships with a formal value chain. The prospects of starting a dairy enterprise are slightly higher in villages compared to urban areas.

Dairy entrepreneurs can make a shift in accordance with the study's findings and boost their profitability. It aids in comprehending how trainees (who obtained advice and training for raising dairy animals from R&D organizations) and non-trainee dairy farmers make value chain selections, which ultimately affect profitability. However, purposive sampling and a small sample size limit the universal implications of the study.

Developing entrepreneurial behavior and startup culture is at the center of policymaking in India. The findings imply that the emerging value chain not only enhances the profit of dairy farmers by resolving consumer concerns about food safety and the quality of milk and milk products but also builds consumer trust.

This paper offers insight into how the benefits of dairy entrepreneurs vary with their participation in the different value chains. The impact of skill development/training programs on value chain selection and farm profitability has not yet been fully understood. Here is an attempt to fill this gap. This paper through light on how trained and educated dairy entrepreneurs are able to establish a territorial market by approaching premium customers – this is an addition to the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the connectedness among Memecoin, Halal exchange traded funds (ETF) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) indexes in different quantiles.

The authors consider Dogecoin to measure Memecoin while Wahed FTSE USA Shariah ETF (HLAL) and SP Funds S&P 500 Sharia Industry Exclusions ETF (SPUS) are used to represent Halaf ETF. Similarly, iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF (ESGU) and Vanguard ESG US Stock (ESGV) proxy the ESG index ETF. The daily price of these examined markets is considered from January 2, 2020, to January 18, 2024. The quantile vector autoregression is deployed for the empirical computation.

The result reveals that Memecoin (Dogecoin) emerges as the best diversifier irrespective of various quantiles because it is least connected in terms of recipient and transmission of shock. In addition, the authors observe an intriguing observation that the total connectedness in higher quantile is large, followed by lower quantile.

This study is undertaken considering the novelty in the form of the proxies of examined markets along with natural outbreak (COVID-19) and man-made outbreak (Russia–Ukraine invasion) periods.

The purpose of this study was conducted at an enterprise that produces fasteners and is one of the leading companies in the sector in terms of market share. Possible defects in the coating of bolts and nuts either lead to products being scrapped or all of the coating process being repeated from beginning to end. In both cases, the enterprise faces a waste of time and excessive costs. Through this project, the six sigma theory and its means were effectively used to improve the efficiency and quality management of the company. The selection of the six sigma project has also contributed to the creation of various documents to be used for project screening and evaluation of financial results.

Six sigma is an optimization strategy that is used to improve the profitability of businesses, avoid waste, scrap and losses, reduce costs and improve the effectiveness of all activities to meet or exceed customers’ needs and expectations. Six sigma’s process improvement model, known as Definition-Measurement-Analysis-Improvement-Control, contributes to the economic and technical achievements of businesses. The normal distribution of a process should be within ±3 sigma of the mean. This represents a scale of 99.7% certainty. However, improving the process through the utilization of the six sigma rule, which accepts normal variabilities of processes twice as strict, will result in an error rate of 3.4 per million instead of 2,700 per million for each product or service.

Using six sigma practices to reduce the costs associated with low quality and to increase economic added value became a cultural practice. With this, the continuation of six sigma practices throughout the Company was intended. The annual cost reduction achieved with the utilization of six sigma practices can be up to $21,780. When time savings are also considered, a loss reduction of about $30,000 each year can be achieved. The coating thickness efficiency increased from 85% to 95% after the improvements made through the six sigma project. There is a significant increase in the efficiency of coating thickness. In addition, the coating thickness efficiency is also close to the target value of 95%–97%.

The results of the study were optimized with the help of deep learning. The performance of the model created in deep learning was quite close to the actual performance. This result implicates the validity of the improvement work. The results may act as a guide for the use of deep learning in new projects.

For survival and prosperity, enterprises need to simultaneously engage in exploitation and exploration. Digital transformation is of great significance to enterprise innovation. However, the impacts of digital transformation on exploitation and exploration remain unclear. Moreover, the impacts of technological diversity on the relationships between digital transformation and exploitation and exploration are also unknown.

Based on an integrated perspective of dynamic capability theory and organizational inertia theory and using data from Chinese listed enterprises from 2007 to 2020, this study clarifies the effects of digital transformation on exploitation and exploration and assesses the moderating effect of technological diversity.

The results show that digital transformation improves exploitation, but negatively impacts exploration. Technological diversity mitigates the negative effect of digital transformation on exploration, but the moderating effect on the relationship between digital transformation and exploitation is not significant.

This study contributes to the existing literature on the digital paradox and provides guidance for enterprises to clarify the direction of digital transformation.