m. r. rezvani

Currently, the concept of networks is widely recognized and extensive research has been conducted to explore the correlation between entrepreneurs' networks and business growth. Consequently, networks are regarded as a crucial asset for business and entrepreneurship. Companies employ networks and engage in network activities as an entrepreneurial strategy to enhance product development, attract new customers, expand resources, and optimize pricing structures. A business network is a intricate web of connections among individuals, companies, universities, government agencies, and other organizations with the aim of generating and sharing knowledge, capabilities, and resources to expedite the innovation process, achieve successful commercialization, and gain competitive advantages. A network approach involves identifying actors, their ongoing relationships, and the structural outcomes of these relationships. Networks, rather than individuals, firms, or nation-states, are the fundamental unit of analysis for understanding the global economy. Powerful actors are those who direct networks and exert influence. Their ability to do so depends on their control over key resources (physical, political, economic, social, and technological). In the network literature, it is commonly suggested that power in a network is determined by position (e.g., centrality) or the strength of connections between actors. Network relations must be both structural and relational. Networks are structural because the composition and interrelationship of different networks create power relations. They are relational because they involve interactions among powerful social actors. These relationships can take various forms such as laws, contracts, values, regulations.

This applied study provides valuable insights for various institutions, such as agricultural jahad and agricultural cooperatives. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed using a combination of library research and field methods. The statistical population consisted of 68 members of Shazand poultry farms, all of whom were interviewed individually. Each interview lasted approximately one hour, during which notes were taken and issues raised by the poultry owners were recorded. The study employed the social network analysis method to examine the interactions and connections among Shazand poultry businesses. The process involved conducting field interviews and observations with poultry business owners in Shazand city, coding the data and entering it into UCINET software as a matrix, identifying and categorizing the types of relationships between poultry business owners, and finally analyzing the network using software to explain the interactions between these businesses.

By utilizing a network analysis method and exploring questions such as the nature of relationships, the formation patterns, the relationship between these patterns and behavior, and their connection to other social factors, this research aims to understand how individuals can access resources through communication with others. The network analysis results indicate that approximately 14% of poultry are interconnected, suggesting a weak and fragile network.

The findings suggest a direct correlation between communication components within the poultry network and educational attainment. Poultry farms with lower levels of education tend to engage in inter-group communication, and whereas education levels increase, there is a greater tendency to outsource communication, resulting in enhanced social cohesion. However, there are exceptions to this trend, such as poultry farms that have no connections to other farmers due to factors like non-indigenous status, limited resources, economic constraints, or lack of support from trustees. Some farms also maintain geographical ties with relatives and acquaintances in other villages, indicating familial relationships within the poultry network. Membership in business networks for agricultural enterprises facilitates information exchange, procurement of cost-effective raw materials, and access to larger markets. Social networks enable skill acquisition, knowledge sharing, collaboration in production processes, increased sales potential, cost reduction measures, innovation, and ultimately contribute to improved performance and competitive advantage for agricultural businesses.

This research aimed to compare the effect of two sources of fat and three levels of a pellet binder on pellet quality, growth performance, prececal nutrient digestibility, carcass, and economic traits in Ross 308 broilers. Two hundred and forty-day-old broiler chickens were applied in a 2 × 3 factorial arrangement in a completely randomized design with four replicates and ten birds in each replicate. The dietary treatments were two fat sources (soybean oil and fat powder) and three levels of a commercial binder named Glomatin® (0, 2, and, 4% in grower and 0, 3, and 6% in finisher diets). The data were subjected to the procedure of General Linear Models (GLM) of SAS, version 9.4 (P ≤ 0.05). Birds fed the soybean oil-containing diet with the second level of Glomatin® binder (2% in grower and 3% in finisher diets respectively) showed the best feed conversion ratio (FCR) in the whole period, and the highest prececal dry matter digestibility, ether extract digestibility, and economic profit. It concluded that increasing the physical quality of the pellet diet by adding a binder in soybean oil-containing diets had an optimum level (2% in grower and 3% in finisher diets respectively). Over that optimum level, it could harm FCR, prececal nutrient digestibility, and finally, profitability.

Studying the rural population developments in Kurdistan province of Iran in the last six decades shows that the villages of this province have always been in a downward trend. Accordingly, the present study aimed at determining the most important factors affecting this phenomenon in the studied villages. It was a descriptive-analytical research with a survey approach. For this purpose, the population growth rate was firstly calculated over three decades from 1986 to 2016; and the studied counties were categorized into three classes (unsustainable, relatively sustainable, and sustainable); then, there were selected a total of 23 villages as sample villages and also 264 households as sample size using Cochran formula in a cluster classified sampling method in summer and autumn of 2019. The spatial distribution of sustainability of rural settlements using the GIS software in the studied area indicated the condition of 56 villages as unsustainable, 23 as relatively unsustainable and 6 villages as sustainable. The results of multivariate regression showed that in terms of influencing the unsustainability of the population of rural settlements in the studied area, the economic, physical, environmental and social factors were in the first to fourth ranks, with beta coefficients of 0.511, 0.478, 0.363 and 0.218, respectively.

This study investigated the effect of adding watermelon juice, vitamin Eselenium and vitamin C to the drinking water on growth performance, internal organs’ weight, and prececal nutrient digestibility in broilers under heat stress. Two hundred and fifty Hubbard F15 day-old broilers were allocated to five treatments with five replicates of 10 broilers per each replicate, based on a completely randomized design. The birds in the control treatment did not receive any supplement in drinking water and reared in thermoneutral temperature. Birds in the other four treatments received watermelon juice at 60% or 30%, vitamin C at 50 mg/L, or vitamin E-Selenium at 1 mL/L of drinking water during the heat stress period. Heat stress applied for 9 hours from day 12 onward. Results indicated birds that received 60% watermelon juice had similar body weight and feed intake compared to control birds. The relative weight of proventriculus, intestine length, and prececal dry matter nutrient digestibility was significantly higher in 60% watermelon juice treatment than other treatments. It is concluded that watermelon juice supplementation at 60% concentration into the drinking water could improve the performance of birds reared under heat stress as a result of restoring water and feed intake and also better prececal dry matter digestibility.

Housing, as a basic need as well as a symbol of human being function is considered as a geographical phenomenon which plays an important role in development of human societies. The main aim of the present study is measuring and spatial analysis of housing development indicators in rural Western Azarbaijan Province, Iran. The present study is an applied research which methodologically is a combination of descriptive-analytical methods. To get the target, 36 indicators were considered. The indicators are grouped into four categories namely: infrastructure and welfare, strength and structure, sanitary, and facilities. Data collection was based on documentary method. Expert’s opinions are used for selecting the indicators and weighting them. For data analysis and ranking the indicators three models of multi-criteria decision making are applied: TOPSIS, VIKOR and Human Development Index (HDI). To gain a vigorous result, an integrating technique including Mean of weights, Borda and Kaplan methods was applied. Findings of the study indicate that villages of two counties namely: Makou and Chaldoran, according to all models are enjoying the highest level of development. In contrast, villages of Naghadeh and MiandoAb are at the lowest level of rural housing development. Based on integration model, the results show that enough attention should be paid to spatial justice in rural housing development. Such a spatial justice can be used by planners for enhancing the levels of development, reduction of inequality, rural resident’s satisfaction of their housing conditions and finally ending at the local development.

Sport ski is one of the winter sports in many countries and many travelers and tourists from different regions want to play ski. Therefore، site selection suitable places for construction ski piste are necessary in order to attract tourists. Heights of Tehran province are one of suitable regions for construction ski piste in our country because of its appropriate climatic and physical conditions، and also existing main cities and vicinity attractions around it. In spite of these pistes are constructed for different goals especially for tourism attraction، but may be standard indicators from tourist aspect not respected in these places. Therefore، suitable site selection for construction ski piste is necessary. In this paper، 13 standard indicators have been used for ski piste construction. In the first stage، final weigh for every indicator was determined by using analytical network process (ANP) and then dataset layers for each indicator was made and classified in the ARC GIS program and by overlapping these layers، final map was designed and six suitable pistes were selected by final map. The results show that three noted places such as parts of Roodbar Qasran village in Shemiranat district، centric part of Abali village in Damavand district and centric and western part of Firoozkooh district are the most suitable places for construction ski piste. The results show that all of existed pistes in the region، especially Abali piste، are approximately adjust and consistent with findings of this paper.

An experiment with 720 pullets was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary energy levels of pullet and dietary energy and fat of laying ration on subsequent performance parameters during 14-20 and 22-44 weeks of age. In the first period, white leghorn pullets were fed with two diets of low and high density energy (2600 and 3200 Kcal ME/kg). In the lating period (second period), birds, in each treatment of pullet period, were fed with six diets containing three levels of low, medium and high energy (2600, 2750 and 2900 kcal/kg) at two levels of supplemental fat (zero and 2%). All diets were formulated to meet minimum NRC (1994) requirements of amino acids and protein. This experiment was done in randomized complete block designs with 5 replicates. The levels of energy in the growing period did not affect egg production, egg weight, daily feed intake, feed conversion rate and age of pubertal maturity in laying period, but pullets fed with high energy diet had significantly higher weights as compared to low energy diet in the beginning of laying period. In the laying period, the use of supplemental fat (2%) improved egg production and egg weight, but feed intake and feed conversion rate were not affected. Means of feed conversion rate, feed intake and egg production during laying period in low energy diet were greater than those as compared to high energy diet, but egg weight was not affected by energy level of diets. Low energy intake to protein intake ratio in low energy diet versus high energy diet may be a reason for greater egg production in lower energy than in higher energy diets.