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The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of external enablers (EEs) – factors that are exogenous and independent of the actors – on the rate of new venture creation (NVC) in digital entrepreneurship.

The authors established a unique data panel comprising all formal digital entrepreneurial firms and startups licensed to operate in the digital space from Iran E-Commerce Development Center, from 2012 to 2022, totaling 124,751 businesses classified in 16 sectors. The authors used Poisson regression with robust standard errors to analyze the relationship between external factors and NVC. Additionally, the authors segmented the data set along demographic, spatial and sectoral subsets to compare them using the average treatment effect model.

This analysis confirms that technology readiness and technology intensity, as EEs, significantly boost digital entrepreneurship in a developing country. The authors also explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural environmental enabler and explored its facilitating effects and the enduring impacts post-pandemic. Moreover, the authors assessed the heterogeneous impact of the EEs across different groups and derived implications for each.

While this study is comprehensive, it focuses exclusively on formal digital entrepreneurship within a single developing country, namely, Iran. Although the authors explored various EEs, they did not address all possible types, highlighting the potential for further research in other entrepreneurial sectors for a comparative analysis of EEs.

The initial findings affirm that most NVC in Iran stems from external factors. These findings have been widely used by policymakers to define the goals and objectives of EEs concerning their nature and impact. This research reveals that EEs have heterogeneous effects on NVC, varying across different characteristics such as gender, geography and industry sectors. The results of this study suggest that governments should reassess the role of “macro” policies to support vulnerable groups. EEs disproportionately benefit male founders, which exacerbates existing gender gaps and necessitates ongoing attention and intervention. Additionally, EEs have diverse impacts across industries, potentially favoring some while disadvantaging others because of varying social, cultural and economic factors.

NVC, central to entrepreneurship in developing nations, encounters numerous challenges, yet the role of EEs remains underexplored in this context. EEs are opportunities that are not limited to a subset of entrepreneurial actors; they act as levers influencing a wide range of entrepreneurial activities. This research distinctively investigates the empirical impact of EEs in a Middle Eastern developing country context, contributing to the growing literature on the external enablers framework.

Sexual intimacy is one of the functions of marriage and married couples especially in Africa. Many marriages and by extension families in Nigeria and Ghana are unstable because of misunderstanding around intimacy style preference. The study investigated sexual intimacy style preference of married adults in West Africa, using a case study of Nigeria and Ghana. The research design adopted was a descriptive survey. A total sample of 324 respondents was sampled in the study using purposive sampling and random sampling techniques. A questionnaire title preferred sexual style inventory was used to gather data for the study. The instrument was validated by expert in the department of counseling education and its reliability was established using test re-test and a coefficient of 0.74 was derived. The result of the study revealed that most preferred sexual intimacy styles of married adult in Nigeria were traditional missionary style, doggy style and the cow girl/woman on top style. Also, the study revealed that married adults in Ghana preferred traditional missionary, cow girl, and doggy style. The study also revealed that there was a significant difference in the sexual intimacy style preference of married adults in Nigeria and Ghana. Based on the findings it is recommended that sociologists and marriage-family counselors should seek to develop awareness about most preferred intimacy styles among married and would be married people in Africa as a way of increasing marital stability and societal wellbeing in the continent.

The purpose of this study is simulation the flow boiling inside a tube in the turbulent flow regime for investigating the effect of using a porous medium in the boiling procedure.

To ensure the accuracy of the obtained numerical results, the presented results have been compared with the experimental results, and proper coincidence has been achieved. In this study, the phase change phenomenon of boiling has been modeled by using the Eulerian–Eulerian multi-phase Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) wall boiling model.

The obtained results indicate using a porous medium in boiling process is very effective in a way that by using a porous medium inside the tub, the location of changing the liquid to the vapor and the creation of bubbles, changes. By increasing the thermal conductivity of porous medium, the onset of phase changing postpones, which causes the enhancement of heat transfer from the wall to the fluid. Generally, it can be said that using a porous medium in boiling flows, especially in flow with high Reynolds numbers, has a positive effect on heat transfer enhancement. Also, the obtained results revealed that by increasing Reynolds number, the created vapor phase along the tube decreases and by increasing Reynolds number, the Nusselt number enhances.

In present research, by using the computational fluid dynamics, the effect of using a porous medium in the forced boiling of water flow inside a tube has been investigated. The fluid boiling inside the tube has been simulated by using the multi-phase Eulerian RPI wall boiling model, and the effect of thermal conductivity of a porous medium and the Reynolds number on the flow properties, heat transfer and boiling procedure have been investigated.

The purpose of this study is three-dimensional flow and heat transfer investigation of water/Al₂O₃ nanofluid inside a microchannel with different cross-sections in two-phase mode.

The effect of microchannel walls geometry (trapezoidal, sinusoidal and stepped microchannels) on flow characteristics and also changing circular cross section to trapezoidal cross section in laminar flow at Reynolds numbers of 50, 100, 300 and 600 were investigated. In this study, two-phase water/Al₂O₃ nanofluid is simulated by the mixture model, and the effect of volume fraction of nanoparticles on performance evaluation criterion (PEC) is studied. The accuracy of obtained results was compared with the experimental and numerical results of other similar papers.

Results show that in flow at lower Reynolds numbers, sinusoidal walls create a pressure drop in pure water flow which improves heat transfer to obtain PEC < 1. However, in sinusoidal and stepped microchannel with higher Reynolds numbers, PEC > 1. Results showed that the stepped microchannel had higher pressure drop, better thermal performance and higher PEC than other microchannels.

Review of previous studies showed that existing papers have not compared and investigated nanofluid in a two-phase mode in inhomogeneous circular, stepped and sinusoidal cross and trapezoidal cross-sections by considering the effect of changing channel shape, which is the aim of the present paper.

This paper aims to focus on reducing the vulnerability of Ahvaz city against urban disasters and lowering the number of casualties and amount of financial losses using modern approaches to develop resilience strategies that can increase urban safety to an acceptable level. The strategic situation of Ahvaz city, because of its abundant resources, the war experience and its location on the boundary regions of Iran, highlights its significance. Ahvaz has a high population and an extended texture, and the existence of extraordinary constructions increases the importance of physical resilience in this city.

The present study investigates built environment aspects such as the urban structure, the urban form, land-use proximity pattern, urban road network and crucial and vulnerable centres in Ahvaz, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Hence, the areas at risk in Ahvaz were identified and illustrated in a comprehensive risk assessment map, and then, by using the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats technique and finally by using the Delphi method, some strategies and plans were presented to reduce the level of vulnerability in Ahvaz. Then, these strategies are prioritized by applying quality function deployment (QFD) technique.

The risk assessment result shows that most parts of Ahvaz’s urban areas are highly at risk. The central and northern parts of Ahvaz have the highest vulnerability at a time of crisis. These zones include district 1 (city centre) and districts 2, 3 and 7 at the city’s margins. The result of QFD process showed that the essential urban resilience strategy is to positively consider the passive defence studies with a physical resilience approach. Also, the proper distribution of strategic points in the city, moving the industrial and oil companies from the peripheral area, and facilitating access to vital, crucial centres to support urban regions are considered the most effective strategic plans.

This paper, with an integrated approach, examines and prioritizes the main physical problems of Ahvaz city based on the spatial analysis and opinions of experts. The physical strategies presented in this paper can significantly reduce the risks and increase the urban resilience of Ahvaz city in the face of crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to numerically simulate the nanofluid boiling inside a tube in turbulent flow regime and to investigate the effect of adding volume faction of CuO nanoparticles on the boiling process.

To make sure the accuracy of the obtained numerical results, the results of this paper have been compared with the experimental results and an acceptable coincidence has been achieved. In the current paper, by Euler–Euler method, the phase change of boiling phenomenon has been modeled. The presented results are the local Nusselt number distribution, temperature distribution of wall, the distribution of volume fraction of vapor phase and fluid temperature at the center of the tube.

The obtained results indicate that using nanofluid is very effective in the postponement of the boiling process. Hence, by change the amount of volume fraction of nanoparticles in base fluid, the location of phase change and bubble creation are changed. Also, at the Reynolds numbers of 50,000, 100,000 and 150,000 with the volume fraction of 2 per cent, the beginning locations of phase change process are, respectively, 2D, 10D and 13D, and for the volume fraction of 4 per cent, the beginning locations of phase change are 4D, 18D and 19D, respectively. These results indicate that, as the volume fraction of nanoparticles increases, the location of the start of the phase change process is postponed that this issue causes the increment of heat transfer from wall to fluid and the reduction of wall temperature. In general, it can be stated that, in boiling flows, using nanofluid because of the delay in boiling phenomenon has a good effect on heat transfer enhancement of heated walls. Also, the obtained results show that, by increasing Reynolds number, the created vapor phase reduces that leads to increase of the Nusselt number.

The paper investigates the effect of using nanofluid in phase change process of cooling fluid.

This study aims to numerically study the forced convection effects on a two-dimensional microchannel filled with a porous material containing the water/FMWCNT nanofluid. The upper and lower microchannel walls were fully insulated thermally along 15 per cent of their lengths at each end of the microchannel, with the in-between length being exposed to a constant temperature. The slip velocity boundary condition was applied along the microchannel walls.

The Navier–Stokes equations were discretized before being solved numerically via a FORTRAN computer code. The following ranges were considered for the studied parameters: slip factor (B) equal to 0.001, 0.01 and 0.1; Reynolds number (Re) between 10 and 100; solid nanoparticle mass fraction (ϕ) between 0.0012 and 0.0025; Darcy number (Da) between 0.001 and 0.1; and porosity factor (ε) between 0.4 and 0.9.

Increasing the Da caused a greater increase in the velocity profile than increasing Re, whereas increasing porosity did not affect the velocity profile growth at all.

This paper is the continuation of the authors’ previous studies. Using the water/FMWCNT nanofluid as the working fluid in microchannels is among the achievements of this study.

The aim of this paper is to discuss a selection of policy strategies, regional initiatives and market approaches to uncover the realities of twenty-first-century building energy performance. A position that market-based approaches, human influence and policy interventions are part of an ecosystem of building energy performance is presented.

An exploratory search of secondary sources spanning the last three decades was conducted. Both peer-reviewed and grey literature were included to capture a broader understanding of the discourse in literature. Research questions guided the literature search, and a data extraction tool was designed to categorise the literature. The primary limitation of this study is that only a few applications could be discussed in a condensed format.

Several challenges about the current status quo of building energy performance were identified and summarised as follows. (1) Inconsistencies in measurement and verification protocols, (2) Impacts of market approaches, (3) National policy priorities that are at variance with regional targets and (4) Ambiguous reporting on environmental impacts of energy efficiency (EE) technologies.

The practical implications of the findings in this paper for practice and research are that as part of the building energy performance ecosystem, national responses through government interventions must become adaptive to keep up with the fast-paced energy sector and social trends. Simultaneously, before market-based approaches overcome the messiness of socio-economic dynamics, institutional conditions and cultural nuances, they ought to transparently address environmental impacts and the infringement of several SDGs before they can become viable solutions to building energy performance.

This paper presents building energy performance as an ecosystem comprising human influence, market-based approaches and policy interventions which form interdependent parts of the whole. However, evidence in the literature shows that these aspects are usually investigated separately. By presenting them as an ecosystem, this paper contributes to the discourse by advocating the need to re-align building energy performance to socio-economic-political dynamics and contextually viable solutions.

This paper aims to introduce and promote the novel concept of Islamic human resource management (iHRM) and assess its effects upon two organizational attitudes, namely, perceived justice and employees’ commitment.

The present study is an applicable and empirical research that has used the descriptive–correlative method. The target population consists of 192 employees from Resalat Qard al-Hasan Bank in the city of Tehran. Calculated based on Cochran’s formula, 128 people are selected by means of a simple random sampling technique. To collect primary filed data, questionnaires are distributed. The gathered responses are analyzed with the structural equation modeling approach using SmartPLS software package.

Four dimensions of iHRM, i.e. recruitment and selection, training and development, remuneration and compensation and performance appraisal, are positively associated with organizational justice. Also the first three dimensions have a positive impact on employees’ commitment, but the link between performance appraisal and employees’ commitment is not statistically significant because of the slightly negative attitude of the employees toward a possible perfunctory routine.

iHRM is one of the emerging trends in Islamic management literature, with limited studies conducted in this specific field. The current effort is one of the first attempts to empirically investigate this relatively new construct in the context of Iran.