Iran has one of the oldest civilizations in the world, and many elements of today’s urban planning and design have their origins in the country. However, mass country-city migration from the 1960s onwards brought enormous challenges for the country’s main cities in the provision of adequate housing and associated services, resulting in a range of sub-standard housing solutions, particularly in Tehran, the capital city. At the same time, and notably in the past decade, Iran’s main cities have had significant involvement in the smart city movement. The Smart Tehran Program is currently underway, attempting to transition the capital towards a smart city by 2025. This study adopts a qualitative, inductive approach based on secondary sources and interview evidence to explore the current housing problems in Tehran and their relationship with the Smart Tehran Program. It explores how housing has evolved in Tehran and identifies key aspects of the current provision, and then assesses the main components of the Smart Tehran Program and their potential contribution to remedying the housing problems in the city. The article concludes that although housing related issues are at least being raised via the new smart city technology infrastructure, any meaningful change in housing provision is hampered by the over centralized and bureaucratic political system, an out of date planning process, lack of integration of planning and housing initiatives, and the limited scope for real citizen participation.

The biomass of three dominant mangrove species (Sonneratia apetala, Avicennia alba and Excoecaria agallocha) in the Indian Sundarbans, the designated World Heritage Site was evaluated to understand whether the biomass vary with spatial locations (western region vs. central region) and with seasons (pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon). The reasons for selecting these two regions and seasons are the contrasting variation in salinity. Among the three studied species, Sonneratia apetala showed the maximum biomass followed by Avicennia alba and Excoecaria agallocha. We also observed that the biomass varied significantly with spatial locations (p<0.05), but not with seasons. The variation may be attributed to different environmental conditions to which these forest patches are exposed to.

For centuries, stem cuttings harvested from sexually mature trees have been recognized to be more difficult to root than those from juvenile shoots. This has been poorly understood and attributed to a combination of ontogenetic and physiological ageing. The recent suggestion that micro-RNA may play a key role in phase change has stimulated a re-examination of some old data that identified pre-severance light x nutrient interactions affecting the rooting ability of stem cuttings. This was linked to vigorous growth and active photosynthesis without constraint from accumulated starch. Support for the prime importance of physiological factors was also obtained when seeking to induce physiological youth in the crowns of ontogenetically mature trees by the induction of roots within the tree crown. Meanwhile, at the other end of the phase change spectrum, floral initiation occurred when the opposite set of environmental conditions prevailed so that growth was stunted, and carbohydrates accumulated in leaves and stems. A re-examination of this literature suggests that rooting ability is driven at the level of an individual leaf and internode emerging from the terminal bud affecting both morphological and physiological activity. In contrast, flowering occurs when internode elongation and assimilate mobilization were hindered. It is therefore suggested that the concepts of juvenility and ageing are not relevant to vegetative propagation and should instead be replaced by physiological and morphological ‘fitness’ to root.

Simulation training in dental medical eduaction is a modern high-tech approach in providing quality higher education. Simulation training immerses students in realistic scenarios, allowing them to develop both technical and non-technical skills essential for effective patient care. This study highlights key contemporary issues in high-tech simulation training for dental education and consolidates its rationale and benefits. We searched the databases PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and ResearchGate. This review includes 36 articles published in English, Russian, and Ukrainian from 2020 to 2024. Non-peer-reviewed papers or those not published in indexed journals were not considered. Simulation training was found to impact integration of theory and practice, training a wide range of psychomotor skills, development of complex clinical competences, cultivating confidence, empathy and patient-oriented care, neuroplasticity of the brain and the cognitive load. Pedagogical benefits and the place of simulation training in the curriculum were also discussed.

In the era of IR4.0, environmental dynamism and satisfying customer needs through digital innovations have evolved across IT industries. This article attempts to examine the effect of technological culture (TC) and knowledge sharing (KS) on digital innovation (DI), organizational performance (OP), and the moderating effect of self-efficacy (SE) on the link between TC, KS, and DI. This study evaluates a novel conceptual framework utilizing survey data from 270 samples of IT firms’ employees in Bangladesh and analyzing it employing the PLS-SEM approach. The findings indicate that knowledge sharing and technological culture have a significant impact on DI and DI also significantly mediates the relationship between operational, financial, and employee performance. The findings suggest businesses recognize the chance of developing digital technologies and the digitalization trend in IT sectors by being devoted to embracing new technological cultures and upgrading their knowledge exchange to become innovation leaders and increase OP. This study describes how new digital technologies and knowledge sharing may be exploited to produce innovative digital creative digital solutions’ innovative products and services which ultimately increase their OP, where the managers of the IT organizations can apply this knowledge in respected fields.