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This study was designed to detect the failures in Iranian accelerators. This paper attempts to identify these effects from the perspective of accelerator managers and founders of startups. The main goals of this article are as follows: (1) What are the failures of Iran's acceleration programs from the perspective of accelerator managers? (2) What are the failures of Iran's acceleration programs from the perspective of startup teams? (3) What are some of failures of the acceleration programs that both groups agree on?

It has been attempted to conduct semi-structured interviews with managers of corporate accelerators on the one hand and startups accelerated in these accelerators on the other. The interviewees were selected using snowball method and consisted of 9 accelerator managers out of 7 accelerators and 15 startups based on 5 accelerators. The analysis of the information extracted from the interviews and coding of the failure identified in the accelerators was performed using the thematic analysis method. In order to assess the validity of this study, an entrepreneurial doctoral student was asked to codify the interviews individually to compare the extracted codes.

Finally, 34 problems have been identified that are divided into four main themes related to mentorship, acceleration program, acceleration structure and infrastructure and internal startup team problems. Overall, the greatest agreement among the failures identified as wrong orientation by untrained mentors, the lack of complementary in ability and skills of team members, the lack of knowledge of mentors, the lack of acceleration managers in entrepreneurship and the lack of a proper leader in startup teams.

This study aimed to investigate the failures of corporate accelerators in Iran as a developing country, which is the first survey in Iran. We have many researches about the pathology and identify failures of accelerators, but in corporate accelerators, little research has been done. The authors have a classification of failures in corporate accelerators by using thematic analysis. In this study, accelerators' managers and founders of startups were interviewed and 34 failures were identified.

The purpose of this study/paper is conducting a Systematic mapping review, as a systematic literature review method for reviewing the literature of new product development by textmining and mapping the results of this review.

This research has been conducted with the aim of systematically reviewing the literature on the field of design and development of products based on textual data. This research wants to know, how text data and text mining methods, can use for the design and development of new products.

This review finds out what are the most popular algorithms in this field? What are the most popular areas in using these approaches? What types of data are used in this area? What software is used in this regard? And what are the research gaps in this area?

The contribution of this review is creating a macro and comprehensive map for research in this field of study from various aspects and identifying the pros and cons of this field of study by systematic mapping review.

Entrepreneurship is the driving force of countries for sustainable economic development. The importance of this issue is to the extent that in recent years, countries have made great efforts to develop their entrepreneurial ecosystem. But the starting point for entrepreneurship is when an opportunity is identified and the entrepreneur rises to use it. Accordingly, opportunity recognition will be the foundation of entrepreneurship and ultimately sustainable development. Given the importance of this topic, this paper attempts to provide a large picture of the studies conducted in this field.

Given the importance of this topic, this paper attempts to provide a large picture of the studies conducted in this field by reviewing 868 articles published on the Web of Science database in the field of opportunity recognition. Accordingly, using statistical descriptions of articles, analyzing the communication network among elements such as authors, countries, institutions, keyword analysis in articles and examining their trends over time, identifying the most important articles using co-citation analysis and finally this macroimage has been mapped, clustered and identified in leading articles in the last decade by co-citation clustering.

The results of the clustering show that the five main clusters of recent decades have included entrepreneurial characteristics and opportunity recognition, macroeconomic opportunity recognition cluster (community and impact on economic development of the country), opportunity recognition process cluster, opportunity recognition cluster in serial and intra-entrepreneurship and opportunity recognition cluster in new venture internationalization.

Using a bibliometric analysis and co-citation analysis in the field of opportunity recognition and making a big picture of studies in this field of study is a contribution that can be used for future studies and researchers and managers in this field.

Various studies suggest that some of natural agents create a specific action of hypocholesterolemic effect. Considering this fact, the aim of this paper is to work on describing selected natural agents that may reduce cholesterol concentrations by different mechanism of actions.

The advantages, phytochemical components and the mechanisms of the agents were reviewed and supported from the findings of the in vitro, double-blind and clinical studies from published journals, books and articles. The journals used in this review were published between 1987 and 2016, and are available from PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar.

Plant stanols and sterols, turmeric, fenugreek, avocado, tomato, artichoke, red yeast rice and garlic showed a positive effect in maintaining cholesterol levels by specific mechanisms or actions. These agents each had a specific action in creating a hypocholesterolemic effect either by inhibition of the enzyme significant to the synthesis process, disturbing the absorption of cholesterol, conversion of cholesterol to other related forms and through the reduction of the oxidative stress.

However, this field still needs more studies as, currently, there is not any detailed information regarding the main active ingredients responsible for the mechanism to reduce cholesterol levels in humans.

This paper enlightens the authors’ understanding of some natural agents that have the potential to be used in controlling cholesterol.

To avoid wastage of resources of a startup accelerator, this paper aims to present a model for accelerator managers’ decision-making to enter startups into acceleration and initial capitalization using a fuzzy Delphi approach and an affinity diagram is one of the design thinking tools.

The high failure rate of startups has led to a waste of resources and a lot of capital. This failure rate is much higher in the early stages of startups and subsequently higher risk. This is where startup accelerators play a role in supporting startups and provide startups with the capital needed to accelerate. The point to note at this point is that choosing the team with the lowest success potential by the accelerators will eliminate their capital and energy. The purpose of this research is to avoid this wastage.

In this research, using the Fuzzy Delphi method and aggregation of opinions of 5 experts and managers of the acceleration field, additional criteria were eliminated and 35 criteria were considered as final criteria of the evaluation model. In the final stage, a 10-member committee of managers, specialists and faculty members was formed and the criteria were grouped using the affinity diagram method. Finally, the final model was presented considering the components of a business plan.

Using design thinking methods and a combination of that with a fuzzy and quantitative method is one of the contributions of this research. Also, making a model for selection startups in the acceleration stage of fundraising is another value of this research.

The purpose of this paper is to propose policy suggestions for the financing of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Asia-Pacific region. Recent literature suggests that lack of capital is the most severe constraint for SME survival and growth. Enabling policymakers to assist SMEs in their search for financing will boost economic growth.

The methodology includes both quantitative and qualitative components. Current World Bank data on the strength of various financial institutions in the countries of interest is analyzed to discover areas of improvement. Additionally, 32 experts from East and South Asia were interviewed several times to determine areas of concern in financing SMEs. Their responses and the evidence from the World Bank data form the basis of the policy prescriptions in the paper.

Financing is a critical constraint for SMEs for several reasons. Many SME owners do not manage working capital effectively, information asymmetry between banks and SMEs retards the loan application and approval process, and underdeveloped equity markets deny SMEs future growth opportunities. Policymakers can ameliorate conditions by serving as facilitators and communicators; governments should not provide financing directly if possible.

It is hoped and expected that the policy prescriptions offered herein will enhance the growth and survival prospects of SMES, thereby creating more employment, innovation, and economic growth.

The main contribution of this work is its scope. While the financing of SMEs is a familiar topic, the review of issues and policies in East and South Asia, and their distillation into practical advice for officialdom, is what makes this manuscript unique.

This paper aims to explore the effects of two drivers, namely, the received fundings and its interaction with the specialized competences owned by the managerial board, on the R&D activities performed by start-ups.

This paper tests hypotheses on a sample of 405 innovative start-ups established in Italy and registered into the Chamber of Commerce official database. This study uses the R&D expenses as a measure of the innovative performance of start-up, and the authors also collected the number and total amount of grants received by them and the presence of high qualified team in their management board.

The analysis reveals that both the number and total amount of grants received by start-ups positively impact the innovative performance. The same is for the integration of the total amount of grants with the presence of high qualified team in the management board.

This study did not distinguish between different types of grants adopted by start-ups, while it would be interesting to study whether any difference does exist among them in terms of their influence on innovative performance. Also, this paper considers the total number of specialized people in the team while it would certainly be interesting to analyze people’s background and competences in relation to the innovative performances.

This paper allows us to offer some provisional conclusions such as having funds in the preliminary phase of start-up life cycle, and investments mainly for R&D expenses. The start-up must also leverage its skills and therefore it is necessary to invest in human capital.

Findings suggest that policymakers should introduce integrated measures to support start-ups throughout the entire life cycle, from the creation of the idea to incubation up to industrial consolidation.

This paper focuses on the determinants of start-up innovative performance because both external (such as political, economic, social and technological) and internal (such as organizational) influencing factors have to be considered as crucial for start-ups innovation and growth. Finally, this study is one of the few attempts exploring the phenomenon by using an empirical methodology based on real and certificated data.

Benzene contamination has been reported in some food groups. This study aims to identify high-risk foods groups to assess exposure to benzene.

Benzene is a hazardous volatile organic compound commonly used in the production of chemicals, detergents, paints and plastics. In addition, benzene is present in food and beverages.

Citrus juice-based beverages are usually more contaminated with benzene than other beverages. Benzene was also detected in carbonated beverages, fruit juices, pickles, lime juices, mayonnaise and salad dressing. Smoked and canned products have higher content of benzene. Aromas that are used in food contained benzene. Food packaging is one of the sources of benzene contamination of food. One of the reasons for its formation in food staff is due to the reaction of vitamin C (or similar acid) with benzoate, which is mainly used as a preservative in various foods.

Foods contaminated with benzene were determined. Moreover, mechanisms of its formation and some preventive measures were discussed.

This review determined the amount of benzene in foods, mechanism of formation and suggestion for prevention of benzene contamination in food.

Due to the political, economic and infrastructure barriers and risks that international entrepreneurs (IEs) face when researching an emerging economy's agrifood sector, this research aims to identify the major barriers, analyse their relationships, quantify their importance, classify and rank them. Thus, the IEs will gain a better understanding and vision of their decision-making processes in this era.

To do this, the authors first created a list of barriers to entry for IEs into Iran's rising economy's agrifood industry. Following that, a multi-layer decision-making approach was developed and implemented to accomplish the research objectives. The first stage utilized a hybrid of interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) to depict the level-based conceptual model and classification of the IEs’ obstacles to entry into the agrifood sector. Following that, a hybrid decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), and analytic network process (ANP) called DANP was utilized to present a causal relationship between the barriers, identify their causes and effects, and also quantify the relevance of each barrier.

After employing the multi-layer decision-making approach, the results demonstrated that fundamental limitations, including infrastructure and technology limitations, are the most critical barriers alongside policy factors encompassing governmental support and access to global or regional economy/market. According to the results, innovation and economic sustainability of the agrifood supply chain also matter. All of these critical barriers are intertwined and should be planned and solved simultaneously. Furthermore, based on DANP results, the sustainability pillars (economy, environment, society), besides the low efficiency of the agrifood sector in Iran, should be investigated further for future policy makings.

A hybrid multi-layer decision-making approach has been used for analysing the barriers of investment in the agrifood sector of the emerging economy of Iran for the international entrepreneurs. Moreover, the authors provide implications and insights for IEs and officials for decision-making in the future.

A hypothesis developed in this paper models the relationship between the borrower and the bank as a dynamic game based on incomplete information (business game) and seeks an equilibrium point at which the facilitated applicant can act according to the terms of the loan agreement once the contract is signed and meet the requirements of the contract.

The primary assumption in the formation of the Islamic bank in Islamic society is that the members of the society are Muslims and act according to religious orders. However, the non-fulfillment of divine principles and orders is always possible. In partnership agreements, the risk of infringement is reduced and corrupt contracts are prevented in some circumstances. Our basic model was constructed using the Beer-Quiche classic game, which has been modified dynamically along with a generalization of complexity terms. The information asymmetry led us to use a heterogeneous belief system to evaluate the probability of the customer transmitting a low credit risk signal to the bank and the probability of the customer transmitting a high credit risk signal to the bank. There are several assumptions of the basic model that are released in the extended model by the presence of a social inspector, by exploring credit risk signals in the generalized model and by considering various commitment levels in the comprehensive model.

As a result, it is observed that there is no Nash equilibrium in cases where the customer applies separation strategies. But if the pulling strategies are applied, the Nash equilibrium can be achieved under certain conditions, including inspection bodies in the banking system, the creation of necessary transparency and the proper treatment of criminals by government and regulatory bodies. So, by using alternative belief systems, applying different filters and paying attention to all sectors of the economy, new Nash equilibrium points can be achieved. Moreover, multi-stage facilities payment reduces the risk of corrupt contracts.

This paper sets out to analyze Nash Equilibrium and its possible encounter in Islamic Banking for the first time, utilizing a Bayesian Game-Theoretic framework. A major aspect of the research is the contribution to a better understanding of the role of transparency and government oversight in the implementation of Islamic banking regulatory standards.