The dynamics of the conflict in the South China Sea (SCS) have begun to enter a new chapter. Currently, the South China Sea (SCS) is a flashpoint in the Asia Pacific region. This study aims to provide an analysis of the concept of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) strategy by the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) toward Competitive Advantage in the South China Sea region. This study employed an analytical approach with a qualitative sequence exploratory method supported by some quantitative data. PEST (Political, Economy, Socio-cultural, Technology) analysis and SWOT analysis methods were used to support the study. Furthermore, this study also utilized an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method approach to provide strategic value and sensitivity analysis as a strategy scenario analysis toward competitive advantage. Based on the results of the research analysis, a strategy under the development of Indonesian Armed Forces capabilities towards a competitive advantage in the South China Sea was obtained, namely the WO strategy which consists of 6 substrate aspects with eight subfactors, namely the combination of all components and strengths in handling security disturbances in the South China Sea (0.162), increased competence of human resources (0.159); development of integrated defense forces and capabilities (0.147), protection of information systems and state secrets (0.145), development of defense facilities and infrastructure (0.109), increasing the capacity and capability of modernizing intelligence technology (0.093), utilization and capacity building of the national defense industry (0.089), deployment of Indonesian Armed Forces troops in the South China Sea (0.075). This study is expected to contribute to the strategy for handling conflicts in the South China Sea and provide strategic steps in increasing capabilities on competitive advantage.

Village tourism is one of the alternative forms of sustainable tourism that began to be developed in Bali. Bongkasa Pertiwi tourism village is one of the villages designated as a tourist village with a variety of natural potential. The purpose of this research is to analyze the strategy and development program of the Bongkasa Pertiwi Tourism Village, and to analyze the factors that play a role in the sustainability of the Bongkasa Pertiwi Tourism Village. The main data collection technique in this study is through FGD, the results of which are input to the SWOT and MICMAC analysis. The results of the SWOT analysis show that Bongkasa Pertiwi Tourism Village has strong category competitiveness, and high category attractiveness as a tourist village, so the strategic position of the development of the Kenderan tourism village is in the condition of growth and build. The three main factors in the sustainability of a tourist village are the uniqueness of the tourist village, the competence of human resources, and the presence of a driving force that has a link with stakeholders.

Medical tourism industry is an international phenomenon, which most of medical tourists for some reasons such as high costs of treatment, long waiting queues, lack of insurance and lack of access to health care in the origin country, travel long distances to benefit from health care services of destination country. Given the competitive nature of this industry, most countries are designing practical and legal services and planning for their development. For this purpose, this study has been conducted to develop a strategic planning framework for development of medical tourism industry in Yazd province of Iran; because in recent years Yazd has recognized as the health pole by patients in developing countries. In sum, emphasizing on servicing, enhancing and developing specialized treatment centers, has attracted patients from center, south and east of the country as well as Middle East and Central Asia countries. The dominant approach in this study is developmental – practical and also the research method is descriptive, analytical and survey. In order to analyzing the data, the SWOT model and best-worst techniques have been used. In the following, after identifying strategic position of Yazd province in terms of medical tourism industry, the related strategies were formulated and practical results were presented.

The contribution of protected areas towards conservation and protection of biodiversity cannot be over emphasized. Likewise, the dependence of local communities on forest and natural resources cannot be overlooked. Hence for the long term viability of forest reserves and wildlife protected area, the relationship of local people living close to these areas are of key importance if conflict of use can be mitigated. Admittedly, decision-making with respect to forest resource use and protection are complex due to the multiple interests of the major stakeholders. Stakeholder involvement in the planning, management and policy analysis can help resolve conflicts, and increase the commitment of local people to support conservation of protected areas. In this paper, we employ the SWOT-AHP methodology, with the aid of the Priority Estimation Tool (PriEsT), to evaluate and prioritize three management strategies for the Kakum conservation area in Ghana, as a means to facilitate conservation while ensuring benefits to local people. Considering the management objectives of the conservation area, seventeen SWOT sub-factors were identified and used in rating the three alternative management strategies. Among the strength sub-factors, enforcement of protection regulations (S4) is the most important. Similarly, limited funds for patrolling and outreach programs (W3), local people’s interest in alternative livelihood (O4) and the presence of illegal activities (T3) are the most important weakness, opportunity and threat sub-factors respectively. The management strategy “institute village committees to support monitoring and protection of resources” (A1) has the highest priority rating, indicating that management authorities must pay more attention to collaborative management. We propose that to improve on protected area management in Ghana, more management strategy studies must be conducted. However, these studies may apply the fuzzy AHP technique since it is supposed to have a better capacity to handle uncertainties in human judgments during decision-making.

Tourism plays essential role in today’s economy and Iran has good position of tourism sources such as natural, historical, cultural, etc., although, these sources have not been utilized, properly. One of regions which have many potentiality and capabilities for developing Tourism in natural aspect is district and city of Galugah. The purpose of this study is to provide strategic assessment and optimization strategies for development of tourism industry to reach sustainable tourism development in this city. The study uses three techniques namely; Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) to determine necessary guidelines for development of tourism in the city of Galugah, Iran. The study first uses SWOT to categorize different factors and then QSPM is applied to prioritize various factors. The results of this study show that presenting methods in initial process and analyzing assessment matrix of T2 external and internal factors i.e. pollution of environment and river and extinction of plants species by result of pollution and O2 i.e. suitable climate for developing natural Tourism efforts in summer have been recognized as most priority factors among external factors. Intense cold of region in summer (W3) and existence of unique amusement places (S5) such as Amarg were recognized as effective and most priority factors among internal factors on Tourism development of Galugah city.

Industrialized and rich nations owe much of their development to advances and achievements they have made in science and technology. These assets have not only served as engines powering their advanced economies but have also led to their exponential social growth. Thus, advancements in science and technology may be regarded as indicators of fundamental development in any modern society as it is the knowledge-based society that is in a superior position to address and resolve its basic problems. While Iran has also been taking drastic steps towards its scientific and technological development, decisive measures are yet to be taken toward developing a strategic plan for these development objectives and gaining a comprehensive understanding of its different aspects. Employing an analytic-descriptive approach, the present study aims to develop fundamental strategies for the national scientific and technological development using the SWOT strategic model. The results indicate that the development of infrastructure for access to information networks with a weight of 0.56 ranks first among the strengths while absence of a strategic development plan with a weight of 0.372 ranks first among the weaknesses. IT infrastructure with a weight of 0.608 is found to have the highest weight among the opportunities while the low relevance between educational programs (at both levels of general and higher education) and scientific and innovation requirements is found to rank first with a weight of 0.46 among the threats. Among the most essential strategies that need to be adopted, one can refer to the development of a basic framework for the uniform and need-oriented connectivity and access to IT and the Internet across the nation; creation and development of such knowledge-based systems and facilities as business and technology incubators, science parks, science a & technology corridors, and innovation clusters aiming at a knowledge-based, dynamic, and developed society; directing efforts at striking a balance between the number of university graduates and the market demands for young educated work force; and maximum involvement of the educated youths in the realization of national development objectives.

Carpet is one of the most popular handcraft industries in Iran and it has created significant number of jobs in various villages and small towns in this country. There are literally many designs and plans introduced by Iranian carpet makers but during the past two decades, we have seen an increasing competition mostly from other countries such as China, India, Pakistan, etc. On the other hands, there are ongoing interests for membership of world trade organization (WTO) and it is necessary to take the necessary actions. The proposed study of this paper uses different mathematical techniques to consider different actions for changing threats to opportunities, reducing unnecessary costs, increasing revenue and market share, etc. The proposed model of this paper uses Fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP), Benefits-Opportunities-Costs-Risks (BOCR) method to detect possible benefit, risk and cost components. We first setup all useful strategies and then using AHP prioritizes different actions.

Development of industries needs expansion of public transportation and, consequently, heavy transportation increases hazardous and dangerous transportation too. Therefore, we need to consider some strategies to reduce bad effects of transportation of hazardous materials such as road accidents. Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Treats (SWOT) analysis is an applicable method for designing strategies in this area. However, SWOT analysis does not provide specific strategies and it does not consider the efficiency and performance of each strategy. Applying a hybrid method of analyzing the strategies and their performance evaluation help decision makers select the best strategies based on the current limitations. In this paper, different strategies for hazardous transportation risk reduction are designed and relative efficiencies of all alternatives are compared using DEA method. The proposed model of this paper uses three inputs including implementation costs, operation and maintenance cost and operational and four outputs including accident rate reduction, fuel consumption reduction, employment rate increment and deaths number reduction. The results of the implementation using seven different strategies have yielded two important strategies including continuous improvement of vehicle standards, driving skills, transportation system quality, and loading methods and expansion of petroleum pipe network.

Tourism industry plays an important role on developing economy especially in regions where there are different historical, landscape and other natural attractions. Bavan Valley located in Nur Abad Mamasani city in Iran is one of the well-known places among tourists. The region has outstanding natural landscapes, moderate weather especially in spring and summer, low distance from the major road locating between different local regions such as Fars, Bushehr, Khuzestan, and Kohkiluye Boyer Ahmad Province. These regions provide appropriate accessibility for the citizens of highly populated cities of this province and it plays essential role of a major attractive pole in southern part of the country. The primary objective of this research is to recognize the present barriers for attracting tourists and to analyze the tourists’ satisfactions associated with the facilities and tourist services. The statistical population of this research includes all the tourists of Bavan Valley in which 381 individuals were chosen as the sample of this research, using Cochran & apos; s formula. The results indicate that there is a significant relationship between the absence of advertisement about Bavan Valley and the number of tourists in this zone (P & LT; 0.05). The findings also show that there is a significant relationship between lack of infrastructural equipments and un-development in tourism industry (P & LT; 0.05). Moreover, the findings of SWOT analysis indicates that 9 internal strength versus 10 internal weaknesses and 7 external chance versus 8 external threat were recognized and analyzed with regard to ecotourism in this zone. Thus, generally 16 strength and chances as the advantages and 18 weaknesses and threats as the obstacles about the Bavan Valley’s tourism were recognized in order to develop tourism.

These days, there are several reports indicating on reduction on renewable resources. On the other hand, there is an increase on the population, which increases production of garbage in the world. With limitation on governmental budget, there is growing concern on having efficient strategic planning for waste management. The proposed study of this paper performs a SWOT analysis to find all strength, weakness, opportunities as well as possible threats associated with waste management organization located in city of Shiraz, located in south west of Iran. Based on the results, appropriated locating strategies for burying garbage, training and increasing awareness regarding production and collection, attracting foreign investment in the field of recycling garbage, reconsidering environmental rules and burying garbage and its separation standards are the most important strategies.