سید حسن قدسی پور

An educational setting is a creative and unique place in which students’ development and proper orientation take place. Faculty members’ daily lives include constant decisionmaking, which is a complex process of contemplation, evaluation, and analysis. Every instructional action is the outcome of a decision made, either consciously or unconsciously, by teachers following extensive processing of available information. Faculty members make decisions about lesson content, class motivation, resource use, incentives or disincentives, and numerous other issues involved in the daily routine of classrooms. These decisions can, but not necessarily, have far-reaching and profound consequences for the success or failure of the faculty’s daily work and future activities. As a result, the attempt to improve the faculty’s decision-making in curriculum planning is aimed at offering crucial solutions to improve educational outcomes, student performance, and the higher education system. A complex and interconnected set of internal and external forces, such as historical, ideological, cultural, social, political, economic, individual, and organizational factors, affect the faculty members’ curriculum planning decisions. Thus, a deep understanding of these factors can lead to the identification of needs, limitations, and opportunities, which, in turn, can affect faculty members’ curriculum development and innovation. As a result, the current study sought to develop a model of the processes involved in Birjand University faculty members’ decision-making in curriculum development. This study used a qualitative approach based on Strauss and Corbin’s reformulated grounded theory. Grounded theory, which is based on a set of empirical relevant data, is a method used to gain knowledge about a subject that has not been thoroughly researched before and for which the existing knowledge is limited. In implementing the grounded theory, the researcher must use a specific technique for analysis, use phased coding (open, axial, and selective), and present the results in the same paradigm model. The statistical population of this study included all Birjand University faculty members, of which 21 were chosen through purposeful sampling. The inclusion criteria were having more than 5 years of experience and teaching at undergraduate and graduate levels. Sampling continued until theoretical saturation was reached. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 21 faculty members from various fields (i.e., educational sciences and psychology, basic sciences, literature, and engineering) that had sufficient experience to provide researchers with expert opinions pertinent to the research topic. Four criteria introduced by Lincoln and Guba (1985) were used to ensure the trustworthiness of the findings. These included credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Member-checking, or participant validation, was used to ensure credibility. The findings were shared with experts to make them transferable. Concerning dependability, the inter-coder agreement was used. Finally, peer review and feedback were used to enhance the confirmability of the results. The results revealed 32 core concepts and 13 categories, which were collated to develop a paradigm model. The following themes constituted the model: lack of scientific rigor in classroom decision-making (as the core category), causal conditions (extraorganizational, environmental, and motivational factors), contextual factors (behavioral factors, programmatic factors, and support factors), facilitating intervention conditions (managerial, structural, and behavioral factors), limiting intervention conditions (organizational-environmental challenges and implementation obstacles), strategies (decision-making based on previous structures, situational decision-making, conservative decision-making, and interactive decision-making), and the consequence (decreased effectiveness and efficiency) of the organization. Based on the findings of this study and the significance of faculty members’ decisionmaking, it is necessary for universities to improve the faculty’s level of knowledge and their “scientific” decision-making skills by implementing an educational program and providing them with the necessary support. In this regard, since faculty members’ decisions can influence students’ educational and business future, it is suggested that the faculty members’ decisions concerning curriculum development be considered and analyzed from a cultural, psychological, economic, and sociological standpoint. Furthermore, due to limited research on the intuitive and logical factors driving the faculty members’ decision-making, more research is needed to focus on faculty members’ curriculum development decisions in relation to students’ characteristics, class dynamics, and organizational context. Also, the nature of these decisions, the factors affecting them, and their effect should be examined. The findings of this study can deepen understanding of and shed light on faculty members’ and teachers’ decision-making in the classroom.

Curriculum development and design of learning systems have become a sophisticated process due to diverse set of learning needs and differences in learners' interests, contents, teaching-learning approaches and the impact of political, social and economic factors, and, hence, decision-making about this complex process and its related factors must be done scientifically. Therefore, choosing the effective approaches that lead us to make appropriate decisions is of paramount importance. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of Analytic Network Process in decision making for the curriculum development based on philosophical method. In this paper, multi-criteria decision-making techniques, and differences between the Analytic Hierarchy Process with Analytic Network Process were analyzed. Then, the nature of the curriculum design and the complexity of decision-making in this field were discussed, and its correlation with new methods was analyzed. The findings indicated the efficiency of the Analytic Network Process in managing the challenges of curriculum implementation, recognizing the influential and complex factors in curriculum development, developing futuristic outlook toward curriculum changes, and analyzing the educational needs which are beneficial for researchers and curriculum planners.

The aim of the current quantitative applied research was to design a model for the investigation of the extent to which automobile production strategies may impact domestic manufacturers’ sustainable competitive advantage. The research data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire whose construct and content validity had been confirmed and its reliability had been verified through Cronbach alpha. The research population comprised senior managers of automobile manufacturing companies located in Tehran, Iran from whom a random sample was selected. The data obtained from 384 completed questionnaires were analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling to find out the relationship among various factors of the model and the Variance-Covariance analysis. The findings emerging from the study revealed that the latent variable of sustainable competitive advantage was delineated by cost, quality, diversity, and flexibility; and that the latent variable of domestic automobile manufacturers’ production and operations strategies were delineated by Kaizen strategies, enterprise resource planning, punctuality, and supply chain management models. Research findings bore on the significant positive effects of production and operations strategies on Iranian automotive industries sustainable competitive advantage.

Growths of technology and innovation have made continual changes in fashion business and costumer tastes. In situations like that, retailers and manufacturers select agility and flexibility as their main supply chain strategies. In this study, a bi-level model including the retailer and manufacturer who traditionally compete on the product quantity and price is proposed; then another model is developed by adding some characteristics of agility to first model. In the proposed model, in addition to the competition between the supply chain members, influences of the customers’ behavior on the decisions of supply chain members are considered. This study is aimed at proposing efficient solutions for determining the price and quantity of ordering and production, considering the situations of competition, customers and market toward maximization of the manufacturers’ and retailers’ profit. The proposed bi-level model is converted to a single-level one using the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) and the results of the model are investigated and discussed by employing in a numerical example. Results show that the retailer and manufacturer, by making proper and precise decisions, can increase their sale price. Further, by improving their decisions, they can reduce the product clearance sale at the end of the sales season, which ends in the growth of profit for both of the supply chain members.

TDue to the increasing significance of natural gas in the global energy portfolio and also Iran being the holder of second most natural gas reserves in the world the importance of managing the production and consumption of natural gas is an apparent fact Therefore underground gas storage USG technology as a tool of gas reservoir management could play a considerable role in the future of the gas industry in Iran Nevertheless the growing trend of attaining key technologies in this field has experienced a standstill In order to analyze and plan the development of this technology there is a need to discover the roots of the problems and failures which hinder this development and also to analyze them This paper aims to provide a framework for analyzing such problems using the approach of technological innovation systems Furthermore the effect of contextual and environmental factors on the development of this technology has been discussed Finally using the structural equation modelling method the relationship between contextual structural and functional factors of the technological innovation system of USG has been tested In the end it is determined that contextual factors directly and also indirectly affect the performance of the mentioned system by influencing structural factors to the extent that the intensity of effects on functions caused by contextual factors is greater than that of structural problems

Science and technology policymaking refers to policies that facilitate technology progress to the market phase, idea to wealth and technology exploitation. The execution of science and technology development policies in each country has an effective role in increasing entrepreneurship and GDP by reinforcing knowledge-based companies and research institutes. Therefor, the paper focuses on innovation systems of petrochemical industry that are one of the important pillars of science and technology policymaking. System dynamics is used to model the techno-sectoral innovation system of petrochemical industry. Trend of motivation motors of petrochemicals based on technology motors is analyzed by causal loops of system dynamics. Also, system dynamics present a model for science and technology policymaking.The proposed model has been validated and the results show the acceptable performance of all innovation system functions (more than 85%). Then, 4 scenarios have been proposed to give each technology, a reward by industry. Finally the results of scenario analysis show that the industry should allocate its rewards to each technology in a tunable way and based on their performance in order to increase industry profits.

Sustainable supply management of food resources and to distribute high-quality food products throughout a profitable supply chain are the most important issues for societies management. In recent years, uncontrolled fishing in the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Oman Sea has resulted in drastic decreases in the reserves of these water resources. Expansion of aquaculture farms not only has contributed to the development of a sustainable source of food for the country but also has been highly effective in the preservation of species that are endangered for whatever reason. Today, seafood and related products have been known for job creation and earning foreign exchange. In this research, we develop a novel Stackelberg modeling and optimization framework for perishable food supply chain that addresses warm-water farmed fish supply chain planning by formulating a bi-level optimization model. This paper proposes an algorithm called bi-level PSO benefits from Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) co-evolutionary algorithm that maximizes the fish farms and stalls profits. To validate the proposed algorithm, Iran warm-water fish supply chain market data was collected; implementation of the model on the Iran fish markets shows its applicability to real life logistics networks.

Innovation systems of any countries is one of the most important subjects that affected directly by science and technology policies. Innovation systems are categorized to: technological, sectoral, regional and national innovation systems. New compounding advantages made by combining every two approaches of innovation systems. In Iran, according to the importance of upstream sector of petroleum industry, petrochemical sector has requirements for creating added value from innovation. According to the sectoral management, the combination technological and sectoral innovation systems seem appropriate for closer analysis of dominated conditions on innovation in this arena. Therefore in this paper, introduced interactions in sectoral innovation system were applied for modeling the technological innovation system about one of the catalystes of Petrochemical industry in Iran. Proposed model was developed by using the System Dynamics approach. Also in this model, Monte Carlo simulation was used to indicate the functions behavior during the innovation lifecycle. The results predict the functions state of the innovation system, analyzing the innovation life cycle and the requirements governing its development. This indicates the status of the development of selected technology in technological innovation system studied.

This paper concerns studying a three-level supply chain and coordinating price and inventory decisions using game theory. In the retailing level, competing exist between retailers and they compete each other to gain higher demand. Demand is deterministic. The main challenge is modeling a multi-level supply chain and formulating the game between players to determine price and replenishment period. Integer multiplier method adopted as replenishment mechanism and three-level nested Stackelberg-Nash game used to formulate the optimization problem that produces a three-level programming model. Retailers formulate the bottom-level Nash game, the whole retailers play the middle-level Stackelberg game with manufacturer, and both levels as a group formulate the top-level Stackelberg game with supplier. Questions that answered at the end are for supplier; (1) what is the optimal price for raw material sold to manufacturer? In addition (2) how frequent should the raw material procurement take place? For manufacturer: (1) what is the optimal product wholesale price? In addition (2) how frequent should the production process take place? For each retailer: (1) what is the optimal price for products sold to market? and (2) how frequent should the product procurement take place?

Nowadays regarding vast change in the world, countries are faced with sophisticated futures. In this situation, conducting innovation and technology policy to increase productivity and also to use internal capital in efficient way is inevitable. Government should intervene to develop emerging technologies toward sustainability and provide competitive environment for developing these technologies. For this intervention, governments need to analyse technological fields and identify the problems that hinder the technology development process and finally provide suitable policies to address these problems. This article proposes a methodology for identifying systemic problems that hinder the technology development process in the context of technological innovation system framework. by identifying this problems (analysis phase),one can proposes policies in order to eliminate obstacles of technology development process. finally, the methodology is applied to the case of Iran combined heat and power (chp) technology and systemic problems that impede innovation process are identified.

Products are usually composed of various parts or subsystems. Therefore, when the structure of the product is defined in product development stage, it must be decided about purchasing or production of components and suitable suppliers must be selected for the components which must be purchased. Apparently, different interdependent components of products such as computers, machinery and automobiles must fit together to perform as anticipated in the final product. This means that the supplier selection should be made with regard to the final product as a whole.In this study, supplier selection problem considering relationships between suppliers is surveyed using suppliers’ previous data. The results show that the proposed model has fewer costs for the buyer than the model that has not considered the relationships between suppliers.

Researchers of OR help managers to carry out their organizational tasks, and their decisions is only evaluated in terms of efficiency or effectiveness. In today's global business environment, Organizations are faced with complex issues; therefore ethical approaches have attracted much attention of researchers. This paper explores a relatively new and innovative process called discourse ethics. Discourse ethics is different from traditional ethical systems. In traditional ethical systems, decisions are evaluated apart of committees and the actual people involved in the process of dialogue and interaction. In this paper, by using the theory of discourse ethics, Ethical aspects of various issues, our performance criterion for dealing with these issues, and the world that these issues belong to it, was described. Finally for dealing with each of these issues, specific methodologies were presented. Today the issues are complex and multidimensional. Managers can’t neglect ethical aspects of issues. Discourse ethics is a good idea for explaining the ethical aspects of issues. OR should be prepared to deal with such issues, and provide appropriate methodologies.

Banks as financial institutions must estimate the credit risk of their debtors. This is the basis of pricing a loan, determining appropriate interest rates and determining the mortgage required to each borrower. Since the continuity of bank activities largely depends on the amount of credit losses in a particular period, banks should consider the credit quality of their loan portfolio as a collection of debts.In this paper, the calculation of credit risk of corporates applying for loans has been investigated. Using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, effective criteria for credit risk have been analyzed.The neural network is used to extract an open box model that describes the relationship between effective criteria and the credit risk of the companies who apply for a loan. Neural network model has been run with historical data. Observations have been based on 174 corporate who had taken out a loan from a major Iranian bank named Mellat (All loans had been made during 2005 to 2008).The output of the model can predict credit risk of a corporate by at least 84% accuracy.

Nowadays considering suppliers benefits in the supply chain management strategies is one of the critical success factors for forming a long time and strategic relationship with suppliers. It is known as a "win-win strategy" that can be formulated by supply chain coordination models. Because of a leading role for suppliers in developing new products and improving current products, they are being active participants in organizations. So it is necessary to consider suppliers’ benefits in purchasing decisions. By generalizing this concept to supplier selection problem, it is needed to consider whole supply chain benefits consist of suppliers and buyer benefits. In this paper, a multi-objective model, including cost, quality and delivery objectives, is proposed to coordinate between buyer and suppliers in supplier selection problem. Maximizing the number of received perfect products is the quality objective and minimizing the number of delays is delivery objective. The total cost of supply chain consist of buyer and suppliers costs, includes the costs of ordering, purchasing, inventory holding and compensation for delays and defects in products. The proposed mathematical model is formulated as a mixed integer nonlinear problem and its efficient solutions are obtained by using a heuristic algorithm. The results are showed in a supplier selection problem using a coordinated model has more benefits for supply chain than usual models.