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There are several approaches for increasing the competitive power of an organization. However, in some cases, some of the approaches are contradictory. Improving efficiency and productivity is one of the best approaches to solve these conflicts. In this research, we have measured the efficiency of five active iron mines during 2008 - 2011, using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method and the efficient and inefficient units were determined. Due to the limited number of studied mines compared with the total amount of inputs and outputs, the discrimination could happen. Thus, we have used Anderson-Peterson (AP) approaches as a complementary method for DEA classic models, in order to determine productive units' final ranking. Based on the results obtained, Mishduvan mine has the highest rank and the highest amount of efficiency during 2009 - 2011.

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For the first time, exuviae of Crocothemis sanguinolenta and Zygonyx torridus were collected from southern parts of Iran. Females of Z. torridus were also observed mating and ovipositing in two habitats. According to our data, these two species successfully breed in some suitable microhabitats and are neither immigrants nor vagrants. Our findings based on this research and recent information showed that habitat dispersal for these two species is not limited to the Hormuz Strait region, as previously thought. Suitable habitats for Z. torridus expanded from the Southwest to the East of the country. For C. sanguinolenta, the habitat range covers the far southeastern parts of the country near the Pakistan border area. Based on the geological history of the Persian Gulf region in the last glacial period and similar African coexisting species in these microhabitats, we suggest that these species are relict populations that survived in a few suitable habitats from a wider area in the past. This view seems more appropriate to explain the current distribution of these species than their recent migration from the UAE or Oman regions

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Ants (Hym., Formicidae) have been recognized as vital components of arid ecosystems. Determining the diversity patterns of ants and the ecological factors behind these patterns is expected to improve our understanding of the functioning of arid ecosystems. Here, we explored patterns of ant species diversity and community composition along an elevational gradient (800 to 2800 m) in the arid area of Central Iran. The elevational gradient in ant diversity and the effects of environmental factors on various indices of ant diversity and species composition were investigated using generalized linear mixed models and variance partitioning analysis. We recorded 34 ant species of 12 genera and 8 tribes from 120 surveyed quadrats. Climate variables were the most important predictors of ant community structure. Indices of ant alpha diversity including Hill numbers and taxonomic diversity increased with elevation. Hill numbers were negatively influenced by temperature, while they were positively affected by precipitation. The observed diversity pattern could be explained by the diversity-productivity hypothesis. In our study area, the maximum primary productivity and consequently the maximum species diversity occurred at high elevations, where precipitation is high and temperature is lower than the extremes that could limit plant productivity. Ant assemblages are expected to become increasingly composed of warm-tolerant species in response to warmer and drier conditions driven by climate change. The distribution of species with lower heat tolerance will be limited to high-elevation areas in Central Iran. These areas could act as refuges for ants and should be considered priorities for conservation

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This paper, using an economic analysis of crime, focuses on the relationship between crime and income inequality in Iran. The results indicate that there is a significant relationship between crime and income inequality in Iran. This means that by increasing income inequality in Iran the robbery as a crime will increase as well. In addition the findings reveal that there is a direct relationship between robbery and the proportion of people in urban areas, divorce and unemployment rate, but there is a negative relationship for households’ monthly income in Iran.

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Customer retention is one of the most important issues of any organization and finding a way to retain and maintain the customer is one of the critical needs of any organization. The main purpose of the present study in the field of machine learning is to focus on the problem of correctly identifying customer needs with a method based on extracting opinion and sentiment analysis and quantifying customers' sentiment orientation. In the other word, the main issue is to design a Recommender System to provide appropriate services in accordance with customer satisfaction, sentiment, and experiences. In order to represent a recommending solution, suitable classification methods are used along with opinion mining methods and proper validation approach as well, and the terminal designed system with a little error will take steps to provide personalized services as well as help banking system.
Since there is no thorough provision of banking services tailored to the customers’ situation, so in this regard, the mentioned system will be extremely beneficial.

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Historically, the mankind has benefited from social capital in his collective life course implicitly and unconsciously. Nowadays, the concept of social capital has been included in the center of economy and community. The communities need to identify the framework of social capital and its consequences in order to overcome recession and deterioration. The relationship among socioeconomic indicators and social capital is one of the most important effects and interactions of social capital. In this article we try to identify the interaction between social capital and human development in the provinces of Iran. To do this, we use vector autoregressive panel data for the period 2000-2009. The results show that social capital has a positive effect on human development in the Iran’s provinces. On the other side, human development will generate social capital strata in the country.

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This paper investigates the short-term and long-term effects of oil revenues on economic corruption in Iran using Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) model during 1979-2011. Findings indicate that increase (decrease) in oil revenues by one percent increases (decreases) per capita economic corruption by 0.29 percent in the long run. In addition, increases in government regulations indicator and government size by one percent reduce the per capita economic corruption by 1.95 and 1.63 percent, respectively. Moreover, one percent increase in trade openness results in increase in economic corruption per capita by 1.26 percent.  

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Pomegranate and plum paste are acidic products that are often used in the preparation of most local foods in Guilan province. As the preparation of these pastes is mainly done in the aluminum containers traditionally, there is a possibility of aluminum leaking into the pomegranate and plum puree during processing. The presence of aluminum in the diet as a contaminant has aroused the concern of many researchers and many studies have been conducted to track the relation between the aluminum intake and the occurrence of the disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, breast cancer, neurological syndromes, and anemia and the link has been proved. In this study, pomegranate and plum paste from 13 different cities of the Guilan province were collected and the amounts of aluminum in them were measured using atomic absorption spectrometry after digestion by dry, wet, and microwave ashing methods. The results showed contamination of pomegranate and plum pastes with high amounts of the aluminum that was higher in plum paste in comparison to the pomegranate paste. The concentration of aluminum in the case of digestion by microwave was higher than the other two methods. Although the aluminum concentration in all samples did not exceed the tolerable level defined by WHO, continuous and long-term use, considering exposure to the other sources of contamination, would be a serious health threat. Therefore, it is necessary to pay more attention to the safe processing of these products.

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Synthetic preservatives, especially nitrite in food, are considered to cause chronic diseases to the human body because of their toxic effects. The per capita consumption of meat products in Iran is 2.5 to 5.5 kg per year, and due to the lifestyle changes of the Iranian families, this consumption is ascending. Therefore, cumulative intake of this preservative could be a warning. By replacing all or a part of nitrite with natural preservative its usage could be eliminated. The aim of this study was to prepare a mixture of natural preservatives from three plant extracts, i.e. clove, eucalyptus and rosemary. To this end, the hydroalcoholic extracts of the plants were obtained and then mixed in a ratio of 3:1:1 of Cloves, Eucalyptus and Rosemary, respectively. Later, Then the mixture was dried on a magnetic stirrer at 50 °C and finally turned into powder by a laboratory mill. Antimicrobial, antifungal, antioxidant properties as well as cytotoxicity effects of the mixed extract were evaluated. Six samples of the chicken sausages were produced with different ratios of the natural preservative to nitrite including 5:0, 4:1, 3:2, 2:3, 1:4 and 0:5. All the samples were evaluated in the terms of color, sensory properties and microbial indices at the periods of 15 and 30 days at 4°C. The results showed that the natural preservative had antimicrobial, antifungal and antioxidant properties and the sausage sample contains 100% natural preservative in terms of sensory properties, microbial indices and color evaluation was the most desirable one. The findings of the present study suggest the application of the clove, eucalyptus and rosemary mixed extract suggested as a safe alternative in chicken sausages and other meat products in food industry.

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This paper examines the historical development of Operations Research (OR) and represents different OR methods (methodologies) developed during its lifetime. Then, considering Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm model of scientific development as a basis for our work, the former and current status of OR are analyzed and the future trend is discussed.

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The aim of this paper is to develop a prediction model of energy demand of Iran’s industrial sector. For that matter a Markov Chain Grey Model (MCGM) has been proposed to forecast such energy demand. To find the effectiveness of the proposed model, it is then compared with Grey Model (GM) and regression model. The comparison reveals that the MCGM model has higher precision than those of the GM and the regression. The MCGM is then used to forecast the annual energy demand of industrial sector in Iran up to the year 2020. The results provide scientific basis for the planned development of the energy supply of industrial sector in Iran.

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This study attempts to investigate the effect of government spending on regional growth in Iran. The relationship between government spending and economic growth is one of the well-known topics in economic literature. One of the problems of developing countries is the failure to achieve sustainable economic growth, which not only causes economic problems such as recession and unemployment, but also cultural, political and social problems. The government economic stabilization policies can be used to narrow the gap between the potential and realized product and to maintain the product near its potential level. One key issue in the field of regional planning is to study and understand the geographical inequalities in different dimensions.  In this paper, using the spatial econometric method, the relationship between government spending and regional growth is estimated by applying the regional data of Statistical Center of Iran during 2001-2017, and Excel and R software’s are used to perform the calculations. This study seeks to explain the growth of different regions using government spending, and to answer these questions:  Does government spending have a significant effect on growth in the regions? Do the regions converge in terms of economic growth over time? The results indicate the negative effect of government spending, population growth and human capital on regional growth in Iran. In addition, the statistical significance of spatial correlation coefficient indicates the positive diffusion effects of regional economic growth.



 

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This paper investigates the key factors affecting the foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow to deve­­loping countries during the period (1995-2010) with emphasis on the financial development. Financial development, as an important factor in FDI absorption and a prerequisite for utilizing the benefits of FDI, not only increases the FDI inflow in developing countries, but also improve the absorption capacity and ability of these countries to utilize the benefits of FDI. Since the financial system consists of several components and provides a variety of services, various indicators, which represent the development of different aspects and components of financial system, have been applied in order to assess the impact of financial development on the FDI. Results indicate that development of various components of financial system (stock market and banking sector) as well as different aspects of financial development (size and activity level of financial system) all have positive and significant impact on the FDI inflow in developing countries during the studied period.

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Low Molecular Weight Glutenin Subunits (LMW-GS), encoded by GLU-3 loci located on the short arm of homologous chromosomes of wheat, play an important role in the bread making quality. Some of the most important gens for quality are located on the D genome, which are interesting in wheat breeding programs. In addition to the bread wheat (Triticum​​​​​​​ aestivum), some species of Aegilops including Ae. cylindrica, Ae. tauschii, Ae. crassa, Ae. juvenalis, and Ae. vavilovi carry D genome. In this study, the phylogenetic relationship among Aegilops species with D genome and bread wheat has been studied based on the sequence of low molecular weight glutenins loci. The results indicated a great diversity for these loci. Presence of several numbers of common protein bands among species suggested a close relationship and high genetic flow among species. Three primers for the LMW-GS proteins were able to reveal the relationship between the species. The results showed a close relationship among bread wheat (T. astivum) and Ae. tauschii species. Ae. crassa species is more distant from bread wheat. Also, the results indicated a close relationship between the Ae. cylindrica, Ae. juvenalis, and Ae. vavilovi. A great diversity of LMW-GS in wild relatives and close relationship between these species and wheat suggest them as a potential source of genes for wheat breeding programs.