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The scaling of social initiatives is of immense importance for public innovation. A key factor in the scaling process is the institutional environment, which plays a key role in supporting and coordinating the scaling process. This environment can be either homogeneous or heterogeneous, i.e. dominated by a few or a variety of public organizations, norms and practices. Both environments have advantages and challenges. However, the academic understanding of the influence of the institutional environment is limited, and a systematic empirical assessment of the relationship between the type of environment and scaling is lacking. The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of homogeneous and heterogeneous environments on the scaling process of social initiatives.

A comparative qualitative study was conducted in the Dutch social sector, including 48 in-depth interviews with initiators and organizations operating in three different domains – a homogeneous, heterogeneous or mixed environment – in the public sector.

Homogeneous environments are less supportive of scaling social initiatives than heterogeneous environments, as sharing best practices and collaborating with less-familiar organizations is not common. Heterogeneous environments, however, do not provide coordination of the scaling process, with the risk that public funds are used less efficiently and effectively. Institutional environments with a balance of homogeneity and heterogeneity are best suited for scaling social initiatives.

By combining literature from different research areas and conducting extensive empirical research in different domains of the social sector, the authors' study provides a broad and nuanced picture and brings precision to the authors' understanding of the relationships between the institutional environment and scaling in the public sector.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the fine wine market is efficient between homogeneous lots and heterogeneous lots.

Auction price data for homogeneous (or solid) lots of fine wines was analyzed to create price prediction models. Those models were used to predict the expected auction price for the bottles within heterogeneous lots. Lastly, models were created to explain and predict the differences between expected and realized prices for heterogenous wine lots.

The results show that large inefficiencies exist. The more complex and expensive the heterogeneous lot, the greater the discount relative to what would have been realized if the bottles had been sold individually. This discount can exceed 50% of the expected auction price.

Heterogeneous lots may arise as a practical requirement from the auction house. Restaurant buyers probably have little interest in such lots because of the inclusion of wines the restaurant will be unable to sell. Collectors may be uniquely positioned to benefit from this price discount.

These results are unique in the literature, because the price dynamics of heterogeneous (or mixed) lots of fine wines have not previously been studied.

The purpose of this study is to explain the opinions of the Muslim jurists available in the fiqh books so that they may be compared with the approaches adopted by modern scholars for defining the concept of riba. It is argued that the method of jurists was different from the one adopted by the modern Muslim jurists and Islamic economists. The new method dichotomizes riba into those of the Quran and Sunnah. On the contrary, jurists of four Sunni schools considered the Quran and Sunnah in this regard as a single whole, and they saw Sunnah as the elaboration of riba. By explaining the similarities shared by different fiqh schools, it is explained that there is no need for a definition of riba.

The paper uses the method of content analysis. The authors have consulted the authentic fiqh manuals of the four Sunni fiqh schools to substantiate the objectives.

One of the major findings of this paper is that interest charged in loan transactions, including bank loans, is riba according to the four Sunni fiqh schools. Moreover, the paper also shows that the similarities among the four Sunni fiqh schools are far more significant than the often-highlighted disagreements among them regarding the concept of riba. The methodology adopted by modern Muslim scholars seems to add confusions around the concept of riba.

The paper discusses views of only four Sunni fiqh jurists.

The paper explains the common methodology followed by the jurists for understanding riba, the significant similarities resulting from their common method, the link between the concept of riba and different types of financial transactions within the framework of the jurists and that combining several fiqh schools at a time is a contradiction-ridden methodology.

Retailers are increasingly adding multiple platform apps. For instance, Hilton Hotel is listed on booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor. The purpose of this study is to examine whether and how the adoption of a second homogenous mobile platform app by new and existing consumers affects their purchasing behavior in both the original app and the overall platform apps.

With 604,864 unique data from a Chinese fast-food company, which sequentially add three food delivery platforms, this paper explores the influence of a second homogeneous mobile platform app adoption on consumer purchase frequency, order size and spending.

The results of the log-linear regression model show that multiplatform consumers are more profitable than single-platform consumers. For both existing and new consumers, multiplatform adoption would increase purchase frequency, decrease order size and increase total spending with the retailer. However, for existing consumers, multiplatform adopters are more likely to buy less frequently, spend less per order and have lower total spending in the original platform app.

This paper contributes to platform addition and multichannel literature by empirically finding that multiplatform adopters, both new and existing consumers, are more profitable than single-platform consumers. Managerially, the results suggest that companies should not hesitate to add multiple platforms and should encourage consumers to use multiple mobile apps.

First, this study examines the multiplatform addition effect on both new and existing consumers, which has not been discussed yet. Second, this study contributes to multichannel literature by finding that multiplatform consumers are more profitable than single-platform consumers. Third, unlike Rong et al. (2021), this study supports that channel capability theory is still valid in the homogenous mobile-to-mobile channel expansion context.

This study aims to investigate the claim that there is no coherent and homogeneous body of concepts and practices that can be classified as “Islamic accounting”.

The study focuses specifically on Islamic accounting and uses a qualitative historical documentary analysis methodology to study an original manuscript from the 14th century.

The analysis of the manuscript argues that religious accounting can be seen as a value-based system for achieving social good and that in the context of Islamic accounting, it can be conceptualised as a coherent body of ideas and practices.

Firstly, the study conceptualises Islamic accounting as a homogeneous discipline with its own knowledge, concepts and practices. Secondly, it contributes to current accounting literature by examining an ancient manuscript from the 14th century, which serves as a foundation for understanding the Islamic accounting system within the context of accounting, religion and spirituality. The paper further contributes by arguing that this conceptualisation of religious accounting as a value-based approach enables its practitioners to evaluate their own accountabilities in delivering on socioeconomic objectives related to inter-human/environmental, social and financial transactions within the context of religious accounting practices.

The world over is becoming urbanized, and people are migrating to cities in large numbers in search of opportunities. The increased urbanization has posed challenges such as congestion, rising crime, and growing urban poverty. The governments respond by providing amenities such as schools, hospitals, and housing to meet to increase in demand for these facilities. However, there is a need for the provision of facilities that meets the expectations of the people, particularly on the proximity of amenities and bundles of utility-bearing housing characteristics. In an attempt to address the challenge mentioned, the study estimated the hedonic characteristics influencing the willingness to accept and willingness to pay for housing facilities in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Using a multiple linear regression model and artificial neural network, the study found out that properties with a bathroom, garage and large floor size have a higher value compared to properties without these facilities.When making decisions to acquire a property, buyers consider the availability of discounts and the prevailing property price. Overall, willingness to pay and accept decisions are mainly determined by location and the price at which homogeneous neighborhood properties were sold. Therefore, the study recommends that urban town planners and other housing authorities prioritize the construction of properties with larger floor areas, parking bays, and bathrooms using a cost-effective mechanism that makes the properties affordable to residents.

The main purpose of this paper is to establish whether trust plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between access to microcredit and survival of young women microenterprises in under-developed financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa. The main focus of this paper is to specifically test whether relational social capital built by young women from homogeneous and heterogeneous groups can be more effective in promoting economic exchange in under-developed financial markets since interpersonal trust has recently been found to harbor group collusion, especially among kins. Overall, the paper distinguishes trust among individuals based on their age, gender and ethnic diversity.

This study used structural equation model to test whether trust significantly mediates the relationship between access to microcredit and survival of young women microenterprises using Analysis of Moments Structures (AMOS) based on recommendations by Hair et al. (2022) and Baron and Kenny (1986).

The findings from this study revealed that trust significantly and positively mediate the relationship between access to microcredit and survival of young women microenterprises in under-developed financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa. Trust developed from relational social capital among young women from homogeneous and heterogeneous groups create a stronger basis for economic exchange in under-developed financial markets.

While this study generates a positive evidence on the impact of access to microcredit on survival of young women microenterprises, the results cannot be over emphasized and generalized because the data were collected from only a single developing country. Future research may extend the current study to include other developing countries to make a more justified comprehensive analysis.

The findings from this study highlights the importance of using a blend of social policy guided by norms combined with formal regulations as an informal contract enforcement mechanism to achieve efficient economic exchange in under-developed financial markets. Relational social capital formed on the basis of informal norms among groups from diverse population can supplement formal laws to enforce contractual obligations in microcredit access, especially among youthful microentrepreneurs, who seems to have stronger relational behaviors than adults. Financial institutions such as banks should use informal contract enforcement system to increase the scope of financial inclusion of young microentrepreneurs, especially in unbanked rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda inclusive where formal laws are weak and sometimes not functional. The findings also show that younger people have a stronger relationship behavior than adults. Therefore, policy should create structures that can promote social activities among youth. Governments in sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda inclusive through their respective Ministry of Gender, Labour and Youth Affairs should create youth clubs that can increase interaction and relational social capital among the younger population to derive economic empowerment. sub-Saharan African governments, Uganda inclusive should rely more on social policy based on relational social capital as a missing link to promote and achieve economic development.

This paper provides an evidence on the unique role of age, gender and ethnicity in information sharing and exchange based on social policy in the financial market to limit group collusion. The authors indicate that diversity in relational social capital among young women microentrepreneurs prohibit strategic defaults, which promotes access to microcredit for survival of women micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through socialization. High level of interaction among younger women microentrepreneurs from homogeneous and heterogeneous groups allow them to close the information gap to timely meet borrowing contractual obligations to derive economic benefits. The paper shows that younger women have more trust than older women while searching for economic value through socialization. In fact, social policy can wholly supplement formal policy to promote growth and survival of young women microenterprises, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda inclusive.

The main purpose of this paper is to introduce the gradient discretisation method (GDM) to a system of reaction diffusion equations subject to non-homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. Then, the authors show that the GDM provides a comprehensive convergence analysis of several numerical methods for the considered model. The convergence is established without non-physical regularity assumptions on the solutions.

In this paper, the authors use the GDM to discretise a system of reaction diffusion equations with non-homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions.

The authors provide a generic convergence analysis of a system of reaction diffusion equations. The authors introduce a specific example of numerical scheme that fits in the gradient discretisation method. The authors conduct a numerical test to measure the efficiency of the proposed method.

This work provides a unified convergence analysis of several numerical methods for a system of reaction diffusion equations. The generic convergence is proved under the classical assumptions on the solutions.

The aim of this paper is to provide a simple yet accurate and efficient geometric method for thermal homogenization of impregnated and non-impregnated coil winding technologies based on the concept of thermal resistance.

For regular windings, the periodic microscopic cell in the winding space is identified. Also, for irregular windings, the average microscopic cell of the winding is determined. An approximation is used to calculate the thermal resistance of the winding cell. Based on this approximation, the winding insulation is considered as a circular ring around the wire. Mathematical equations are obtained to calculate the equivalent thermal resistance of the cell. The equivalent thermal conductivity of the winding is calculated using equivalent thermal resistance of the cell. Winding thermal homogenization is completed by determining the equivalent thermal properties of the cell.

The thermal pattern of different windings is simulated and compared with the results of different homogenization methods. The results show that the proposed method is applicable for a wide range of windings in terms of winding scheme, packing factor and winding insulation. Also, the results show that the proposed method is more accurate than other winding homogenization methods in calculating the equivalent thermal conductivity of the winding.

In this paper, the change of electrical resistance of the winding with temperature and thermal contact between the sub-components are ignored. Also, liquid insulators, such as oils, and rectangular wires were not investigated. Research in these topics is considered as future work.

Unlike other homogenization methods, the proposed method can be applied to non-impregnated and irregular windings. Also, compared to other homogenization methods, the proposed method has a simpler formulation that makes it easier to program and implement. All of these indicate the efficiency of the proposed method in the thermal analysis of the winding.

This study proposes a collaborative federated learning (CFL) framework to address personal data transmission and retention issues for artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled video surveillance in public spaces.

This study examines specific challenges for long-term people monitoring in public spaces and defines AI-enabled video surveillance requirements. Based on the requirements, this study proposes a CFL framework to gradually adapt AI models’ knowledge while reducing personal data transmission and retention. The framework uses three different federated learning strategies to rapidly learn from different new data sources while minimizing personal data transmission and retention to a central machine.

The findings confirm that the proposed CFL framework can help minimize the use of personal data without compromising the AI model's performance. The gradual learning strategies help develop AI-enabled video surveillance that continuously adapts for long-term deployment in public spaces.

This study makes two specific contributions to advance the development of AI-enabled video surveillance in public spaces. First, it examines specific challenges for long-term people monitoring in public spaces and defines AI-enabled video surveillance requirements. Second, it proposes a CFL framework to minimize data transmission and retention for AI-enabled video surveillance. The study provides comprehensive experimental results to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed framework in the context of facial expression recognition (FER) which involves large-scale datasets.