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Motivated by recent research indicating that the operational performance of an enterprise can be enhanced by building a supporting data-driven environment in which to operate, this paper presents a simulation framework that enables an examination of the effects of applying smart manufacturing principles to conventional production systems, intending to transition to digital platforms.

To investigate the extent to which conventional production systems can be transformed into novel data-driven environments, the well-known constant work-in-process (CONWIP) production systems and considered production sequencing assignments in flowshops were studied. As a result, a novel data-driven priority heuristic, Net-CONWIP was designed and studied, based on the ability to collect real-time information about customer demand and work-in-process inventory, which was applied as part of a distributed and decentralised production sequencing analysis. Application of heuristics like the Net-CONWIP is only possible through the ability to collect and use real-time data offered by a data-driven system. A four-stage application framework to assist practitioners in applying the proposed model was created.

To assess the robustness of the Net-CONWIP heuristic under the simultaneous effects of different levels of demand, its different levels of variability and the presence of bottlenecks, the performance of Net-CONWIP with conventional CONWIP systems that use first come, first served priority rule was compared. The results show that the Net-CONWIP priority rule significantly reduced customer wait time in all cases relative to FCFS.

Previous research suggests there is considerable value in creating data-driven environments. This study provides a simulation framework that guides the construction of a digital transformation environment. The suggested framework facilitates the inclusion and analysis of relevant smart manufacturing principles in production systems and enables the design and testing of new heuristics that employ real-time data to improve operational performance. An approach that can guide the structuring of data-driven environments in production systems is currently lacking. This paper bridges this gap by proposing a framework to facilitate the design of digital transformation activities, explore their impact on production systems and improve their operational performance.

Resilient hospitals have the vital role in reducing mortality, severity of injuries by providing required emergency services during accidents and disasters. This study aims to identify and prioritize key indicators on hospital resilience.

This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2019. The draft of the indicators obtained from the systematic review of the previous study was finalized, with three expert panel sessions and 14 experts in resilience fields. The outputs of these sessions were divided into three domains including constructive resilience, infrastructural resilience and administrative resilience, 17 sub-domains and 71 indicators. Then fuzzy analytic network process method was used to weight and prioritize the final indicators of hospital disaster resilience.

Administrative resilience, logistic and financial management and strategic outsourcing agreement allocated the highest weight as domain, sub-domains and indicators, respectively. The weight of each sub-domain and indicator was also determined.

Investigating the weight of domains, sub-domains and indicators shows the importance of managerial and operational issues in hospital resilience. By using the indicators and relative weights, a tool for measuring hospital disaster resilience can be created in further studies. The output of these assessments is effective in promoting safety and increasing awareness of hospital managers and health policymakers.

Efficient operation of supply chain management (SCM) software is highly dependent on performance of its data structures that are used for data storage and retrieval. Each module in the software should use data structures that are appropriate for the types of operations performed in that module. The purpose of this paper is to develop and introduce an efficient data structure for storage and retrieval of data related to capacity of resources.

A major aim of supply management systems is timely production and delivery of products. This paper reviews data structures and designs an efficient data structure for storage and retrieval of data that is used in the scheduling module of SCM software.

This paper introduces a new data structure and search and update algorithms. This data structure can be used in SCM software to record the availability of non‐storable resources.

This is the first paper that discusses the role of data structures in SCM software and develops a data structure that can be used in the scheduling routine of SCM systems. Scheduling is one of the complex modules of SCM software. Some of the special characteristics related to capacity of resources to develop a data structure that can be efficiently searched and updated as part of scheduling routines were used in the new data structure. This data structure is a modified version of threaded height‐balanced binary search tree. Each node in the proposed tree has one more key than a node in the ordinary threaded height‐balanced binary search tree. The available algorithms in the literature on search and update operations on height‐balanced binary search trees are modified to suit the proposed tree.

This study aims to evaluate the effect of the installed photovoltaic (PV) systems on the aesthetic perception of the mosque’s architectural form. It also aims to develop a framework for integrating PV cells with the various elements of the building type.

The study adopted a mixed-method approach comprising both qualitative and quantitative techniques for data collection procedures. This includes surveys, literature review, focus groups and an experiment.

The results revealed a negative impact of the building-applied PV panels on people’s perception of the mosque’s architectural form. However, integrating the PV cells with the mosque form was perceived as more aesthetically pleasing. Certain integrating PV strategies integrated more harmoniously with certain mosque styles.

This study is focused on limited styles of one building type. Extra research is needed to explore the differences between the different participated groups.

There is a lack of research that explores the ways the installed PV systems impact the users’ architectural aesthetic perception of the mosque. This study informs the design process and practice and construction industry by highlighting the opportunities PV systems, as a legitimate sustainable energy resource, offers to architects and manufacturers.

In casting a new look at city; this study interprets the urban form in respect of the role played by human perception of space. The main aim of this research at a macro level is to attain a strong theorical basis through a multi-dimensional approach to the city. The method of analyzing and carrying out a critique of it at an applied level will clarify the impact, which cultural factors have in the formation of urban form. This preliminary recognition and idealism is based on a hermeneutic and deductive method that is particular to the intellectual sciences In the process of devising theories, studying the urban planning texts related to the subject of study and the conclusion from the field study which is carried out in the Isfahan Naghshe Jahan square in the Safavy period played a key role in the research in addition to the goals and questions.

The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual framework for defining the notion of “physical integration” regarding the Iranian bazaar as the main component in the structure of traditional Iranian cities. Applying this conceptual framework to the historical bazaars in the cities of Kerman and Shiraz, this study seeks to pave the way for restoring the physical integrity of such historical districts.

The research was conducted in two phases. First, there was a review of the theoretical background of physical integration followed by the analysis of the corresponding qualitative contents and the validation of the proposed conceptual framework as confirmed by 15 local experts. The second phase tested the validated framework in two case studies based on maps, historical documents and field observations.

The findings show that the physical integration of historical bazaars can be undertaken in morphological, visual-aesthetic and functional aspects. The proposed conceptual framework is capable of dealing with the different aspects of physical integration in historical districts on a meso-scale.

The theoretical implications of this study concerning the physical integration of traditional bazaars address urban design, urban planning and multi-disciplinary historical geography. The study also has practical implications for the integration of bazaars in historical urban regeneration projects via design guidelines.

This study emphasizes the importance of physical integration as a multi-dimensional concept, facilitating it to deal with the physical quality and the characteristics of historical districts, particularly bazaars. It also highlights the role of the Iranian bazaar as a unifying structure in the historical districts.

Using data on 51 firms traded in the Egyptian Exchange from 2014 to 2016, this paper aimed to assess the efficiency of corporate governance (CG) and intellectual capital (IC) practices and to explore their influence on the probability of a firm's financial distress.

The relative efficiency of CG and IC practices has been measured under the Malmquist data envelopment analysis model. A modified Z-score model was applied to assess firms' financial distress.

The Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed almost insignificant evidence regarding the improvement of CG and IC efficiency over the study period. The efficiency score of CG practices had no impact on the likelihood of financial distress. However, the efficiency score of IC negatively affected the probability of financial distress.

The integration of data envelopment analysis with Tobit regression was required for identifying the significant drivers of efficient CG and IC.

The findings shed light on the role of CG and IC in alleviating the degree of financial distress in Egypt as an emerging market, especially the need to raise firms' compliance with the Egyptian CG code from a voluntary to mandatory status.

This study, using Malmquist data envelopment analysis, is among the first attempts to assess the relative efficiency of CG and IC practices and their effects on financial distress.

Kish Island is one of the most attractive tourism destinations in Iran and it is becoming an increasingly popular destination for tourism investment. Many people have recently migrated to the island. Thus, one of the housing policies for the island is to maximize the efficiency of residential lands, particularly in providing affordable housing for low‐income people. The purpose of this study is to develop social, economical and architectural solutions for affordable housing design and overcome related problems using adapted vernacular solutions.

The methodology of this study involved identifying the research problem, followed by formatting the research framework, reviewing the comprehensive literature and documenting the concepts of affordable housing and vernacular architecture. Therefore, an affordable house design methodology was used to develop vernacular architecture to minimize cost and environmental impacts, while maximizing the social acceptability in housing projects for low‐income earners in Kish Island. Section A in Mir Mohanna, which is the most important residential centre for the low‐income people, was used as the study area in this research.

The results of this study clarified that the houses in Section A in Mir Mohanna did not meet the criteria of affordable housing and people's needs. Hence, some suggestions for affordable housing would certainly contribute towards formulating all these, including housing policy to be implemented on Kish Island.

The current paper was an attempt to find strategies for guiding the appropriate process of developing affordable housing on the basis of vernacular architecture for the country and other similar places. It is hoped that the recommendations might increase more regulated housing development and housing policies on Kish Island.

Even the smartest organizations believe that “good enough is never good enough.” Highly intelligent people may be able to do important things individually; still, it is their accumulated brainpower that allows them to do great things. Collective intelligence means when a group of people do things that seem intelligent. On the other hand, when intelligent people are gathered or hired in an organization, they tend toward collective stupidity and slow-wittedness. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to develop a model of the factors affecting and affected by collective stupidity.

This study was conducted using a mixed-method approach and in two phases: qualitative and quantitative. First, in the qualitative phase and in order to achieve new findings, semi-structured interviews with experts from 12 knowledge-based companies were used to design a conceptual model and formulate the hypotheses. At the end of the qualitative phase, the conceptual model and relationships between variables were drawn. Then, in the quantitative phase, by running structural equation modeling, the antecedents and consequences of collective stupidity derived from the qualitative phase findings were analyzed and the research hypotheses were tested in 110 industrial knowledge-based companies.

The results of the qualitative phase revealed that individual, group and organizational factors were the antecedents of collective stupidity, with individual factors having three dimensions, collective ones including two dimensions and organizational ones focusing on the characteristics of managers/companies. It was also found that collective stupidity had individual consequences in three dimensions and organizational consequences in five dimensions; and one-sidedness, non-strategic thinking, organizational injustice and weakness in the management of key personnel were extracted as mediators. The results of the quantitative phase confirmed the research model and showed that individual factors and organizational consequences had the lowest (0.037) and highest (1.084) effect sizes on collective stupidity, respectively.

The study of the phenomenon in a particular context and the difficulty of generalizing the findings to other situations, the small size of the study population due to the disproportionate number of experts to the total staff in the qualitative phase, and the limited participation of experts due to the negative nature of the issue in the quantitative phase. Taking advantage of the diversity of experts' mental abilities through equipping the organization with tools for recognizing collective stupidity, improving collective decision-making, enhancing the efficiency of think tanks and organizational prosperity in the age of knowledge economy, preventing damage to the body of knowledge of the company and reducing social loafing can be the main operational implications of this study.

Using a mixed-method approach for analyzing the antecedents and consequences of collective stupidity in this study and examining such a phenomenon in a knowledge-based organizational context and its implementation in a developing country can be among the innovations of the present research. By following a few studies conducted in this field in addition to the organizational pathology of the phenomenon using a fundamental method, this study obtained deep results on how to make the maximum use of experts’ capacities. This was to the extent that in all of the three sections, i.e. the antecedents and consequences of collective stupidity, a new factor emerged.

Online feminist activism has opened a different path for ordinary Iranians who are not necessarily versed in post-revolutionary discourses on feminism and political activism, nor are familiar with the names and past achievements of Iranian women’s activist pioneers since the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Social media has helped to tease apart government statecraft that continually touts and reemphasizes Islamic values, at the same time providing a platform for a feminist consciousness that more recently has passionately supported individual rights, especially the right to privacy. This chapter delves into this move toward a more individualized form of dissent, surveying the generational, ideological, and technological divides that have emerged among Iranian women’s activists following popular uprisings that have been happening domestically since 2009.