Many issues have emerged more clearly than before in multi-storey residential buildings during quarantine and lockdown caused by the global pandemic COVID-19. Among these problems is the deterioration in people’s mental and physical health inside the home caused by quarantine and closure. This deterioration is due to inadequate passive ventilation, natural lighting, and the lack of green open spaces in and around traditional multi-storey residential buildings. Also, one of the most severe problems is the airborne infection transmission from a positive covid-19 person to others due to the lack of control in the entrance of buildings against an infected person. In this paper, we modified the shape of a traditional multi-storey residential building. Using Design-Builder and Autodesk CFD software, we create a simulation to compare the amount of natural ventilation and lighting before and after modifying the building’s shape. This work aims to increase the passive ventilation and daylight inside the building. Also, to achieve the biophilic concept to provide open spaces for each apartment to improve the mental and physical health of the residents. In addition, it protects the building users from infection with the virus. Through this study, we found that passive ventilation and daylight achieved more efficiency in the building that we have modified in its shape, which led to a 38% reduction in energy consumption. In summary, these findings suggest that by modifying the mass of the traditional multi-storey residential building with open green spaces provided for each apartment, the natural connection with the inhabitants of the building was sufficiently provided. Moreover, all this will significantly help improve residents’ mental and physical state, and it will also help prevent the spread of various diseases inside the homes.

Noise is considered as one of the challenging problems in big cities. However, this noise could be utilized in producing energy especially in dense urban areas. Sound as a form of mechanical energy, it can be converted to electric energy through many approaches including heating, by using the diaphragm and through using piezoelectric materials. This research aims at utilizing noise through using piezoelectric materials as an approach of conversion to produce green sustainable electric energy that can be used to decrease the energy consumption from non-renewable sources and utilizing this energy in street lighting. The study was carried in three bus stations in Alexandria by having measurements during weekdays and weekends in order to study the noise produced in the selected stations and the amount of electric energy that could be produced and utilized in street lighting. The noise level index L_DEN was calculated for each of the three selected locations. The equivalent noise level values were always exceeding the limits through the day, evening and night. At daytime they ranged between 75–85 dB which is higher that the permissible limit by 10–20 dB, at evening they ranged from 80–85 dB which is also higher than the permissible limit with 20–25 dB and at the night they ranged from 75–80 dB which is higher by 20–25 dB than the permissible limit. The research concluded that utilizing noise using the piezoelectric material is successful. The electric energy produced from an area of 1.45 m2 containing 690 piezoelectric QB220-503YB transducers at each of the selected stations was about 0.024 watt hr. This amount of electric energy is too small to be used in an application. So the application area should be maximized to hundreds of square meters to produce beneficial electric energy that can be used in lighting 1 LED street lamp or it can be stored and used when needed in applications that use greater amount of electric energy and this would help in reducing the energy consumed.

Digital transformation has become increasingly important for information technology software companies, as it can have a significant impact on the organization's bottom line. However, many companies struggle to achieve success in their digital transformation journey. One of the key challenges that organizations face is the lack of agility. Organizations need to develop their agile maturity levels in order to achieve their desired results. This paper investigates the relationship between agile maturity levels and digital transformation success in information technology software companies. The study also examines the key agile practices that contribute to digital transformation success. A descriptive study was conducted on different software companies. 100 employees working on agile projects were given a survey, and the responses were examined using the SPSS software. In addition to the quantitative data, the study also conducted qualitative interviews with 10 professionals who have implemented agile transformation in their organizations. The findings of the study suggest that there is a significant positive relationship between agile maturity levels and digital transformation success. The correlation analysis revealed a strong relationship between the three agile maturity dimensions (self-organized team, agile project management, and test-driven development) and digital transformation success. It also showed a moderate relationship between the six agile maturity dimensions (performance management, defect prevention, customer availability, requirement management, collaborative development, and regular delivery) and digital transformation success. The paper also found that the key challenge that organizations face in their digital transformation journey is the lack of clarity around the goals of the transformation. The results of the paper have practical implications for agile practitioners and organizations in identifying the order of key areas of agile maturity and activities that should be introduced to achieve a successful digital transformation journey.

Developing an effective entrepreneurial ecosystem is viewed as a regional economic development approach that focuses on developing supportive circumstances that encourage the startup’s success. This study aims to investigate the impact of the entrepreneurial ecosystem on startups’ success and the variables that could play a mediating role in the relationship between entrepreneurial ecosystem and startups’ success. The research is based on face-to-face and online semi-structured interviews (the interview guide consisted of 9 open-ended questions) from second quarter of 2023 until the end of the third quarter of 2023 (the data collection phase was closed after meeting the criteria of data saturation). The participants were selected via purposeful sampling technique (20 owners or managers of startup companies including IT, customer service, food, transportation, etc. in Egypt). Thematic and content analysis is done by using NVivo software. From the analysis of the interviews, four themes are developed, and each theme consists of several codes. The first theme is the entrepreneurial ecosystem, with codes: competence development, education and training, enterprising culture and leadership, financial support, government policies and regulations, market openness, and intermediary services. The second theme is entrepreneurial characteristics, with codes: self-efficacy, entrepreneurial attitude, entrepreneurial intention, and entrepreneurial innovation. The third theme is entrepreneurial challenges, with codes: fierce competition, failure to plan and unrealistic expectations, knowledge and skills gaps, and ineffective marketing. The fourth theme is startup success, with codes: productivity, financial performance, and competitive advantage. This study found, that some elements are unimportant for startup’s ecosystem: government programs and support, commercial and professional infrastructure for entrepreneurs, and access to physical infrastructure for entrepreneurship. At the same time, the study confirmed that education and training, enterprising culture and leadership, financial support, government policies and regulations, and market openness are unimportant for startup’s ecosystem. Moreover, it is found that such elements as competence development and intermediate services should be additionally included in the ecosystem. From this study, the model that investigates the relationship between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and startup success was developed. Finally, some recommendations provided to decision-makers and current and future research.

Egypt tends to construct new cities to provide social housing for its citizens. However, the planning of urban residential districts (URDs) in these cities lacks provisions for natural ventilation (NV), and indoor-outdoor thermal comfort, resulting in increased energy consumption during the summer months. This research aims to create a sustainable design through biomimicry to reduce the universal thermal climate index (UTCI) values in the URD in New Aswan thereby enhancing outdoor thermal comfort and reducing energy consumption inside buildings at the level of URD. In this research, the approach of prairie dogs in building their burrows was followed to rearrange and reorient the buildings. Autodesk CFD, Rhino7, Grasshopper, Ladybug, Honeybee, and Dragonfly software was used in the simulation. The rearrangement of the buildings, specifically the oriented design in the east-west direction, caused a difference in pressure between the buildings, leading to improved NV between the buildings. The improvement of NV resulted in a 4.2 °C reduction in UTCI values during specific hours over the six different days in the six summer months, resulting in significant energy savings of 10407.28946 KWh in the URD. The occurrence of a pressure difference between buildings not only improved NV but also enhanced outdoor and indoor thermal comfort, promoting energy conservation. Therefore, careful consideration of the arrangement and orientation of buildings is essential to establish sustainable URDs. Although the difference between the results is slight, it creates substantial differences in the long term for UTCI values, thus the energy conservation in the URDs.

The relationship between the human mind and creativity in design is always confusing where it is interspersed with a lot of consequences that might hinder the design process. Since the beginning of creation, the design is constantly evolving. However, architectural science has lately witnessed tremendous boom in the use of computers to express complex geometric shapes that were difficult to move from the mind to the drawings. The design process relies in all stages of the transfer on signals from the right lobes of the brain to the nerves and then to the hand to carry whatever information that is reached by the mind to graphics. With the development of science, design three-dimensional programs have begun to rely on coordinates instead of the two-dimensional drawing and turn it into perspective. Therefore, it is possible to imagine that there could be a direct connection between the waves of the human mind and programs in order to design the coordinates of the cell is to be the future design codes.