The International Journal of Humanities
Volume:14 Issue: 1, 2006

During the past two decades business and manufacturing have observed significant and radical changes. Companies have used automation in the manufacturing, in order to improve quality and competency. It was expected that along with these changes, management accounting systems, which focus on monitoring and analyzing management decisions, should adapt with and encourage the changes. Many authors have claimed that management accounting systems have not helped the suitable business and manufacturing strategies in the new environment. Some even claim that it has hindered investing in advanced manufacturing technology and productivity. This research, by analyzing information collected from 101 Iranian business units from various industries and manufacturing settings, investigates justification basis for capital investment in advanced manufacturing technology. The study demonstrates that there is more correlation between qualitative factors such as; manufacturing capabilities, improved product quality and, competition position with investment justification than quantitative bases such as; accounting rate of return (ARR), internal rate of return (IRR) and, net present value (NPV).

When we speak of “training by means of questions”, as the most widespread form of training in language teaching, the question of self-assessment is more than ever vying for attention. Self-assessment is an active rational strategy of on-the-job training, which allows teachers to identify ways of improving their job skills. In this article, we intend to offer a pedagogical reflection, which, by providing teachers with the appropriate means, helps to assess their teaching efficiency, their autonomy, and real personality through proper self-awareness. For this, the contributions of self-assessment to on-the-job training are undeniable when it comes to managing one’s own shortcomings in teaching.

In this paper, we investigate a decision support system (DSS) for the resolution of real-life vehicle routing and scheduling problem (VRSP). Scheduling the deliveries from a regional distribution centre (RDC) to large stores of a major fmcg retailer includes every possible vehicle routing complexity. Usual constraints that are seen are: size of the vehicle and the length of the driving day, loading feasibility of products in different parts of the vehicle, and also with various time windows. More importantly, in this scheduling decision-making is customer oriented, in which, Customer's value for the company is considered as one of the most important factors. The algorithms for the resolution of the distribution problems constitute a very important part of DSS. Therefore, a simulated annealing based algorithm has been developed to speed up the process by circumventing the need for the skeletal schedule.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the most symbolic of all Romantic poets. Through his creative imagination, Coleridge creates symbols that disguise the philosophical ideas, and something fresh and unsullied out of the chaos of different images and associations. It is simply imagination that enables the romantic poet to present spiritually perceived things, and resolves his conflict by returning to “dynamic organicism.” In Coleridge’s masterpiece entitled The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the emphasis is placed on “negative romanticism” or the poet’s “period of doubt and despair” when he fails to perceive the truth, imaginatively. In isolation and with the help of imagination, the poet sees the benevolence of the universe and the beauty of all the creatures. Besides, he finds the potentiality to grasp the truth. What follows is an attempt to see to what extent the Mariner is symbolic of a romantic poet, or a true romantic poet according to Peckham. This study traces the different states the Mariner goes through changing from a negative romanticist to a positive one. The changes are accompanied by change in attitude towards the universe and unity with it. Furthermore, projections of Coleridge as a romantic poet, on his imaginatively created character help reveal more about the Mariner.

Section 115 of Iranian constitution reads: "The president should be among the political, religious 'rejal' …". The word 'rejal' taken from Arabic language means 'men'. Some Iranian politicians believe that the word has the same meaning in Persian, therefore, women cannot lead the country as presidents; while, others argue that 'rejal' can now refer to both sexes, therefore women can be elected as presidents. This, study tackles the issue from a sociolinguistic perspective. To do this, we need to find if the word 'rejal' is now a Persian word borrowed from Arabic, or, it is an Arabic word to which Persian speakers switch. About eleven hours of sociolinguistic interviews were conducted with 10 Persian speakers and all nouns (Arabic or Persian) were extracted from the data and later subjected to analyses to describe the linguistic behavior of each category in its own context. Then the behavior of nouns in each context is compared to that of the other contexts. Our findings show that Arabic origin nouns are found to be behaving like Persian nouns, they have, therefore, been borrowed into Persian and have Persian connotations and functions. Evidence is, therefore, presented to the 'Persiannes's of 'rejal', shedding scientific light on a political problem.

The present paper aims to highlight the origin of the youth movements in Iran during the intervening years of 1971 and 2002. During these three decades, youth movement was one of the important social movements in the political arena of the country. While explaining the origin of the movement, two changes i.e. 'generation gap' and 'democracy' have been studied and it was found that the origin of the youth movements in Iran was due to the contradictions between authoritarianism and democracy. Apart from various official statistics and figures, some results of some opinion surveys have also been utilized to analyze this paper.

The term “Ta’ziyeh” refers to an Iranian dramatic genre which might be compared to the Western Passion Play and is the only indigenous drama of the entire Islamic world. This ritual drama has both an Islamic and a Persian heritage, the central theme of which is the tragic and heroic martyrdom of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and the third Imam of Shi’ite in the desert of Karbala in 680 A.D. Shiites believe that Imam Husayn sacrificed his life to be their Intercessor on the Day of Judgment. The history of Ta’ziyeh did not begin with the events at Karbala rather it dates back to pre-Islamic culture as well as the dramatic expressions of both the Memorial of Zarer, a religious epic from the Sassanid era, (226-652 A.D.), and the Tragedy of Siyavush, a work from ancient Iran, which precedes the Ta’ziyeh play by 1,200 years. The tradition continued from an early processional form to the Magtal-Khani (a recital of martyrdom stories), until it took a dramatic shape. Further, both the playwrights and the structure of the Takiyeh performance building, its performance site, contributed to the evolution of Ta’ziyeh. In this paper, the emphasis is to demonstrate the character of Ta’ziyeh, its foundation and, the development of its various elements. It also attempts to reveal, from an objective stance, its value to a people who embrace it as a kind of ritual, both a holy and national art form. Ta’ziyeh is a kind of ritual drama which has fascinated some of the world’s most famous theatre historians, critics, and performers, who view in it some elements of the postmodern theatre.

Foreign policy cooperation and coordination among the European Community member states and presenting Europe with a single voice, has long been an important challenge within the European Community/European Union, especially since early 1970s. In the early 1990s, following the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, there was a general speculation in Europe that the EC may be able to play a new role in international system and fill the vacuum created by the the Soviet Union. The Kuwait crisis, in the wake of Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, was the first test for the European ambitions in the post-cold war era. Many European leaders saw it as an opportunity to present a European initiative and play an effective role towards the crisis. Then, the first reactions of the EC, unprecedentedly, were quick and unanimous. This unanimity continued during the first phase of the crisis, when the counter-measures to the crisis were mainly economic and to a lesser extent political. But with the appearance of the military dimension of the crisis, the EC was no longer able to maintain unanimous standand the member states were divided into two camps: Atlanticists and Europeanists. Britain, occasionally supported by Denmark and Netherlands, sided with the US which pursued a military solution to the crisis. While the Franco-German axe, followed by the rest of member states, preferred a diplomatic solution to the crisis in a longer span. As far as the military operation seemed imminent, the division became deeper. In practice, when military operation began, the Europeans have no choice except to follow the American lead. These developments were influential on formation of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) as the second pillar of the EU in Maastricht in 1992.