In this paper, we present an empirical study to determine the effects of different barriers on using information technology for learning and teaching in elementary school students. We plan to find the most important factors preventing elementary school children on implementing different information technology facilities for their educational programs. The study selects a population of 720 women teachers who work for elementary schools and chooses a sample of 220 people for this study. A questionnaire consists of various important factors are distributed among these people and the results are analyzed using some statistical tests. The study indicates that education program itself is to blame as the most important barrier for using information technology.

The novel equivalent material concept, proposed originally by the author, was utilized together with the mean stress and the point stress failure concepts to predict the load-carrying capacity of O-notched ductile steel plates under pure tension. Unlike for V and U-notches, it was found that the point stress criterion combined with the equivalent material concept could estimate successfully the limited available experimental results reported in literature regarding four O-notched plates made of very ductile steel. By using the model, one may predict well the onset of tensile crack initiation in O-notched ductile components without requiring performing experiments or elastic-plastic analysis.

Semi-submersible drilling platforms are huge bulk structures for extracting the oil products from great depth of seas. For such bulk structures, the Morrison’s equations are no longer valid for determining the loads applied to the semi-submersible drilling platforms. The diffraction theory should be used for evaluating the hydrodynamic interactions between the platform and the sea waves. In this theory, the Laplace equation is solved by considering the boundary conditions of the diffraction theory. In this paper, after a brief description of the diffraction theory, the hydrodynamic interactions between the Iran’s Amirkabir semi-submersible drilling platform and the regular linear waves of Caspian Sea is investigated numerically using boundary element method in the ANSYS/AQWA software. The induced waves exciting forces and moments with different wave heading angles are estimated for six degrees of freedom relative to the waves frequencies using the diffraction theory. The performed hydrodynamic analysis is also validated with the previous works performed for Spar platforms.

Degradation of integral skin polyurethane foams (ISPUFs) was performed using diethylene glycol (DEG)/-sorbitol/water ternary green solvent system as an effective polyurethane bond destroying agent in combination with basic catalysts, namely sodium and potassium hydroxides, sodium acetate and sodium carbonate. The effects of studied catalysts were investigated and data showed the high performances of sodium hydroxide in recycling process. After completion of the reactions, appeared split phases contained recycled polyols in the upper phase. Reactions were studied using various DEG/-sorbitol/water ratios and the recovered polyols were characterized and data compared with an authentic sample.

The synthesis of Triphenylphosphonium trichloroiodoaluminate (III) ionic liquids (ILs) is reported here. The product was characterized by spectroscopic and analytical methods such as 31P-NMR, FT-IR, cyclic voltammetry, CHN, TGA and differential thermal analysis (DTA). Thermal analyses were used to investigate the thermal behavior of this compound. The results show that this ILs has excellent thermal stability below 110?C. Along with the experimental study; this compound has been studied computationally at the B3LYP/LANL2DZ level of theory using the Gaussian 98 program package. From these calculations, optimized geometries, molecular parameters, and vibrational spectra of ILs have been calculated. In addition, calculated frequencies are compared with the experimental frequencies after correction by the appropriate scaling factor. This comparison shows that our theoretical data are in good agreement with the experimental results.

In today & apos; s world, many planning problems include a hierarchical decision structure with independent and often conflicting objectives. Therefore, the optimization of supply chains with hierarchical structure is essential. In this paper, we investigate a fuzzy multi-objective multi-products supply chain optimization problem in a bi-level structure with one level corresponding to a manufacturer planning problem, while the other to K distribution centers problem. In our model, customer demand and supply chain costs are considered uncertain and will be modeled with use of fuzzy sets. We first describe how different kinds of problems can be modeled as bi-level programming problems. Then, this fuzzy model is first converted into an equivalent crisp model by using ?-cut method in each level, and then by applying extended Kuhn–Tucker approach, we have a linear multi-objective programming problem. Fuzzy goal programming technique is applied to solve the multi-objective linear programming problem to obtain a set of Pareto-optimal solutions. Finally, a numerical example is illustrated to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.

This paper studies the issue of channel coordination for a decentralized supply chain consisting of one vendor and one buyer in multi-period setting. Considering the allowance of the backorder at the buyer side distinguishes this work in the literature. The credit option contract as an incentive scheme is pursued to encourage the buyer to participate in the coordination model. Order quantity, credit time and backordered demand in each period as decision variables are determined jointly in order to encourage the chain’s member to participate in the coordinating contract. The proposed model shows that the credit option contract for the case of backorder allowance is able to realize the channel coordination in the studied supply chain. A wide range of numerical examples are studied to analyze the sensitivity of the contract efficiency to the inventory system’s parameters such as order cost, holding cost and shortage cost.

Cultural heritage and properties in collections are the most important organizational resources of museums, which can be deteriorated under improper environmental conditions. Identifying the climate deteriorating agents, and assessing and prioritizing their risk levels are among the most recent issues studied by museum conservators and researchers. Creating risk management programs leads to enhancing service life of cultural properties. Temperature and relative humidity are two important factors related directly to objects permanence; Thus, using methods which combine and quantify the conservation effects of temperature and relative humidity, could yield to useful and reliable insights for proposition of effective preventive conservation solutions. This research tries to explain the role and importance of risk management programs in the museums -as one of the main pillars of the country & apos; s cultural heritage; therefore, by using a multidisciplinary approach and existing experiments, proposes a method to examine and assess risks of temperature and relative humidity on museum objects. Such quantitative analysis could help estimate objects & apos; service life and provide solutions in order to enhance it. In order to examine the proposed research method, temperature and relative humidity data were gathered from textile storage room of the Cultural Institute of Bonyad Museums in a period of 18 months.

During the past few years, new methods of advertisements such as internet, email services, etc. have created new opportunities to promote products and services. The cost of an email message is normally negligible but the outcome could be significant. This paper presents an empirical investigation to find the effect of new advertisement techniques on export based product development in a case study of mobile devices. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale consists of 29 questions, distributes it among 150 exporters of mobile devices in Iran. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.826. In addition, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Approx. Chi-Square are 0.790 and 1023.3, respectively. Based on the results of our survey, we have derived five factors including emotional effects, brand promises, pricing strategy, modern advertisements and detected promotions.

Marketing the network of organizations, including manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, that distributes goods or services to consumers is one of the most important decisions for marketing managers and producers. In this study, we identify and prioritize the factors, which affect marketing strategy in selecting distribution channels by using fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making (FMCDM). The proposed study uses Fuzzy Delphi Analytic Hierarchy Process to determine the weights of the criteria by decision makers and marketing strategies is ranked by Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). Finally, the case study within a Kaleh Company (Dairy products) is performed and the results indicate that the “diversifying product” is the most important marketing strategies considered by experts.