Iran's “Twenty-Year Vision Document”: An Outlook on Science and Technology

In 2005, Iran outlined its goals in economic, science and technology for the next twenty years, Sanad-e- Cheshm Andaz-e Bist Saleh (The Twenty-Year Vision Document), a working plan to raise the country's ranking to that of the first in the region. This article aims to map Iran's scientific and technological performance over five years since the ratification of the plan. Three main areas of science and technology—the percentage of GDP invested in knowledge, scientific performance and technological performance—were used to compare Iran's scientific output with a set of regional countries. The study revealed that Iran's investment in science to inspire technology (the linear model) has been able to nourish scientific performance in the form of rising publication, whereas the neighboring countries followed a more diversified pathway and inspired science from technological advances. Thus, the number of countries in the region capable of competing with and even outstripping Iran in terms of technological and hence scientific performance has increased.     

Final /n/ Deletion in Ghayeni Persian: Opacity in Harmonic Serialism and Parallel Optimality Theory

This paper explores the application and non-application of final /n/ deletion in Ghayeni Persian. In this dialect, final /n/ deletion is a productive phonological process whose application in different domains and environments is affected by several opaque counterbleeding and counterfeeding interactions as well as bleeding. This research presents new empirical data about these aspects which could be of general theoretical interest. It is also an attempt to make a contribution to current debate in phonological opacity. In so doing, it adopts Harmonic Serialism (HS) to accommodate counterbleeding opacity. It offers an analysis to survive a pitfall challenging HS in handling counterbleeding opacity in derived words. With regard to counterfeeding opacity, it adopts Parallel Optimality Theory (POT) using Local Constraint Conjunction (LCC). It discusses how POT and HS in particular could treat opaque interactions in Ghayeni dialect. In addition, this paper argues that a candidate which undergoes the same process twice in the same step could also be included in HS’s gradualness condition.     

Land suitability assessment for locating industrial parks: a hybrid multi criteria decision‐making approach using Geographical Information System

Industrial areas play a critical role in urban and regional planning, especially for developing countries where reliable strategies for these areas can promote economic and environmental efficiency. The present study provides an integration of hybrid multi‐criteria decision‐making (MCDM) theories and Geographical Information System (GIS) processes in order to assess the suitability of an industrial location. Unlike traditional models, an efficient decision analysis demands handling uncertainties and considering dependencies between criteria. The proposed MCDM framework uses fuzzy theory because of the vagueness of experts' judgements. Moreover, Decision‐Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) is employed to investigate interrelationships among the criteria. In the proposed empirical solution, analytic network process (ANP) principles are used to deal with systematic interactions. We considered several factors such as accessibility, topography, proximity, and socioeconomic characteristics in the decision‐making procedure for a sustainable industrial park. The system is applied to Hamadan province, Iran to determine appropriate locations that are the results of the aggregation of criteria maps in a GIS environment. The results demonstrate that accessibility and economic indicators are essential for choosing an industrial park's location. Additionally, the proposed method can be applied for an efficiency evaluation of available industrial parks.