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This study aims to formulate exploratory scenarios of the textile industry in Iran based on MICMAC and soft operational research methods.

In this study, to formulate plausible scenarios, literature reviews and external experts’ opinions of this field have been gathered through the Delphi approach and uncertainty questionnaires. After the utilization of the most important uncertainties, the textile industry’s plausible scenarios have been mapped with the help of experts through co-thinking workshops. Results show that two factors, including the business atmosphere and membership in World Trade Organization (WTO), play a more important role than the other factors. These two factors were considered for the formulation of the scenario. To formulate plausible scenarios, soft systems methodology, which is a kind of soft operational research methods, is applied.

Based on the results, four scenarios are presented. These scenarios include the Elysium scenario, Hades scenario, Tatarus scenario and Sisyphus scenario. In the Elysium scenario, the business atmosphere has improved and Iran has been granted membership of the WTO. In Hades scenario, Iran has joined the WTO, but due to the government’s weakness and inactivity and key decision-makers, the required preparations have not been made. In the Tatarus scenario, Iran is not a WTO member and the business atmosphere is disastrous. In the Sisyphus scenario, the government takes reasonable actions toward a better business environment.

Formulating plausible scenarios of the textile industry is an excellent contribution to the key beneficiaries and actors of this industry so they can present flexible preparation-based programs in the face of circumstances. Future study of the textile industry familiarizes the actors and beneficiaries of this industry with the procedures and the driving forces that influence this industry’s future and it will ascertain various scenarios for the actors of this field.

The purpose of this study is to formulate exploratory scenarios of Operations Research through the critical uncertainty approach and Soft Systems Methodology.

In this study, to formulate plausible scenarios, the discipline of operation research internal and external experts’ opinions of this field have been gathered through Delphi approach and uncertainty questionnaires. After use of the most important uncertainties, plausible scenarios of operations research have been mapped with the help of experts through co-thinking workshops.

Four scenarios are presented in this study. These scenarios include Solar System, Esfandiar's Eye, Rival’s Setraps and Legendary Simurgh. Naturally, the imagination of such a unitary future for all academic communities is an expectation far from reality, and given the conditions of each of these futures or any integration of them is imaginable.

Operations Research models have been faced with variously multiple changes since its emergence until now. Investigation into the future of operations research on the necessity for his planning has not received a reasonable notice in the literature. Sporadic activities that have been carried out are also lacking in the necessary methodology. Also, there has been no research about future study using the soft Operation Research tools (Soft Systems Methodology).

Students’ academic achievement is a multifaceted phenomenon. While depression can suppress academic performance, academic satisfaction can promote it. This study aims to investigate the relationship between depression and academic satisfaction among students studying at Shahroud University of Medical Sciences.

This cross-sectional study was carried out on 312 undergraduate students of Shahroud University of Medical Sciences. Data collection tools included demographic data form, University Student Depression Inventory and academic satisfaction scale. Data were collected by a simple random sampling method and self-reporting by the participants. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (multivariate multiple regression analysis and multivariate linear regression).

The participants’ mean depression and academic satisfaction scores were 71.92 ± 22.94 and 53.70 ± 9.69, respectively. In addition, the depression score was significantly and inversely correlated with students' academic satisfaction (r = −0.122, p-value = 0.031). Moreover, there was a significant correlation between students’ depression with marital status, level of the semester, interest in the field of study and study topic.

This study emphasizes improving education, spiritual and social support and strengthens strategies to deal with depression and medical science students’ related factors.

Students of medical sciences are exposed to depression during their college years, which is related to their academic satisfaction.

Studies on remarriages based on census data are not available in Bangladesh. Moreover, questions like why the remarriage rate is declining in Bangladesh despite the increasing trend of divorce rate and what factors are associated with this declining trend of remarriage are not answered yet. Thus the purpose of this study is to assess the prevalence of divorces and the extent to which this has influenced the likelihood of remarriage in Bangladesh.

Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analyses have been performed by analyzing the most recent and largest sample census data of ever married men and women aged 10 years and above collected in 2011.

The prevalence of remarriage is low in Bangladesh but more common in rural places of residence, substantially larger in slums when compared with non-slums, among Bengali ethnic people, rent-free tenancy, the age group of 45 years and over, the male population, people of Muslim religion, who have no education, and poorest wealth quintile. Muslim religion, slum dwelling status, employed status, media exposure, and urban residence stand out as the major determinants in terms of remarriage. Women having higher education and the richest quintile of households are less likely to be remarried than those who have lower education and are from the poorest wealth quintile background. Males who remarry also followed the same pattern. But remarriage is higher among both the divorced males and females as compared to widowed males and females. Strategic targeting and responsive social policies are needed to be implemented toward the differential pattern of remarriage by sub-groups of the population and their vulnerabilities in relation to their marital status and marital relation, to understand remarriage dynamics in Bangladesh.

Blockchain technology, a key feature of the fourth industrial revolution, is receiving widespread attention and exploration around the world. Taking the coronavirus pandemic as an example, the purpose of this study to examine the application of blockchain technology from the perspective of epidemic prevention and control.

Exploring multiple case studies in the Chinese context at various stages of deployment, this study documents a framework about how some of the major challenges associated with COVID-19 can be alleviated by leveraging blockchain technology.

The case studies and framework presented herein show that utilization of blockchain acts as an enabler to facilitate the containment of several COVID-19 challenges. These challenges include the following: complications associated with medical data sharing; breaches of patients' data privacy; absence of real-time monitoring tools; counterfeit medical products and non-credible suppliers; fallacious insurance claims; overly long insurance claim processes; misappropriations of funds; and misinformation, rumors and fake news.

Blockchain is ushering in a new era of innovation that will lay the foundation for a new paradigm in health care. As there are currently insufficient studies pertaining to real-life case studies of blockchain and COVID-19 interaction, this study adds to the literature on the role of blockchain technology in epidemic control and prevention.

This study aims to investigate the factors that influence the sustainable online purchase intentions of consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also examines the role of relational benefit and site commitment in the study model.

Data were obtained from a survey of 356 Bangladeshi consumers who were voluntarily using the internet during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modelling with Smart PLS 3.0 and SPSS V25 tools.

The results show a positive and significant relationship between consumers’ personal innovativeness and impulse purchase orientation with their relational benefit and site commitment, social influence with relational benefit, relational benefit with site commitment, site commitment with the intention to purchase. Moreover, the study found that relational benefit mediates the relationship between impulse purchase orientation and social influence with site commitment. The results also indicate that site commitment mediates the relationship between personal innovativeness and impulse purchase orientation with the intention to purchase. The results further indicate that site commitment mediates the relationship between relational benefit and intention to purchase.

The findings allow online stores to consider crucial factors in their policies when making strategic decisions regarding the factors impacting consumers’ online purchasing intention during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this study, a research framework is developed with a focus on the sustainable consumer intention to purchase. This study, therefore, adds to the existing literature by analyzing the factors that determine online purchase intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh, given the limited number of studies on the online consumer behavioral intentions in related circumstances to COVID-19.

The purpose of this study is to identify the drivers and future scenarios of Iran’s Social Security Organization.

The research is applied in terms of orientation and mixed in terms of methodology. In this research, the methods of theme analysis, root definitions, fuzzy Delphi and Cocoso were used. The theoretical population is the managers and senior experts of the social security organization, and the sampling method was done in a judgmental way. The tools of data collection were interviews and questionnaires. The interview tool was used to extract the main and subdrivers of the research and develop the scenarios.

Through theme analysis, 35 subdrivers were extracted in the form of economic, sociocultural, financial and investment, policy, marketing, environmental and legal themes. Due to the large number of subdrivers, these factors were screened with fuzzy Delphi. Eleven drivers had defuzzied coefficient higher than 0.7 and were selected for final prioritization. The final drivers were prioritized with the CoCoSo technique, and the two drivers of social security holdings governance and state of government revenues had the highest priority. Based on these two drivers, four scenarios of prosperity, resilient social security, unstable development and collapse have been developed.

Some of the suggestions of the research are: using the capacity of FinTechs and financial startups to invest the government revenues of the organization, using digital technologies such as business intelligence for more efficient decisions and developing corporate governance in the organization.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the hydromagnetic third-grade non-Newtonian fluid flow and heat transfer between two coaxial pipes with a variable radius ratio.

To solve the approximate nonlinear and linear problems with variable coefficients, a trial function was applied. Methods include collocation, least square and Galerkin that can be applied for obtaining these coefficients.

It is revealed that an increase of the non-Newtonian parameter, Hartmann number, and radius ratio leads to an augmentation of the absolute value of the dimensionless velocity, temperature, velocity gradient, and temperature gradient of about 10-60%. Further, the augmentation of Bi₁ reduces the absolute value of the dimensionless temperature profile and dimensionless temperature gradient about three to four times; hence, the dimensionless heat transfer rate reduces. However, the growth of Bi₂ has a contrary impact. Besides, the increase of Pr and Ec leads to an increase in the dimensionless temperature profile and dimensionless temperature gradient; therefore, the dimensionless heat transfer rate increases.

The convection heat transfer on the walls of the pipes is considered, and the nonlinear coupled momentum and energy equations are solved using the least squared method and collocation methods, respectively.

This paper aims to understand the effect of extrusion conditions on the degree of foaming of polylactic acid (PLA) during three-dimensional (3D) printing. It was also targeted to optimize the slicing parameters for 3D printing and to study how the properties of printed parts are influenced by the extrusion conditions.

This study used a commercially available PLA filament that undergoes chemical foaming. An extrusion 3D printer was used to produce individual extrudates and print samples that were characterized using an optical microscope, scanning electron microscope and custom in-house apparatuses.

The degree of foaming of the extrudates was found to strongly depend on the extrusion temperature and the material feed speed. Higher temperatures significantly increased the number of nucleation sites for the blowing agent as well as the growth rate of micropores. Also, as the material feed speed increased, the micropores were allowed to grow bigger which resulted in higher degrees of foaming. It was also found that, as the degree of foaming increased, the porous parts printed with optimized slicing parameters were lightweight and thermally less conductive.

This study fills the gap in literature where it examines the foaming behavior of individual extrudates as they are extruded. By doing so, this work distinguishes the effect of extrusion conditions from the effect of slicing parameters on the foaming behavior which enhances the understanding of extrusion of chemically foamed PLA.

This study aims to investigate how city dependence and city social bonding determine city brand love. In addition, the study examines whether there are different resident segments that exhibit distinct behaviour in relation to city brand formation.

The study is based on primary responses collected from 595 residents from Khulna city in Bangladesh. The research model is tested using partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling. The resident segments were identified using PLS prediction-oriented segmentation method.

Results show that city dependence (i.e. dependence on urban facilities and services provided by the city) and city social bonding (i.e. social interactions amongst residents in the city) lead to city brand love through city satisfaction and city identification. In addition, the study finds that city social bonding and city satisfaction are important for the relationship-reliant residents, whereas city dependence and city identification are important for the resource-reliant residents.

Future research can investigate the relationship between the length of residence and native vs non-native residents’ influence on city brand love formation.

The city brand managers and planners should adopt a resident-inclusive approach that considers the different needs of the residents to engender city brand love.

The study contributes to city branding literature by empirically investigating the under-researched topic of city brand love by identifying the key constructs and their role in determining city brand love. Further, it shows that the route to city brand love formation is different based on residents’ needs.