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The methods and techniques of performance evaluation are the key issues in organizational and academic researches.  One of the problems of performance evaluation in working groups is dealing with group performance evaluation and individual performance evaluation. A comprehensive performance evaluation system not only assesses performance at different levels (individual and group) but also considers the dependence and relations between them. Existing systems cannot consider the effect of different levels on each other. In this paper, we use Data Envelopment Analysis method for studying performance as a multi level phenomenon. For this purpose we use a multi-level Data Envelopment Analysis Model for evaluating performance of working groups in a governmental organization in Iran. The model views the groups at the highest level in the hierarchy as the decision-making units whose performance are optimized. Part of the output from the optimization is a set of performance measures for the components of those top level decision-making units. The result shows that the multi-level DEA model is an appropriate model for measuring groups and their members’ performance at simultaneity.

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The current paper focuses on polysemy of one highly flexible spatial term in Persian, namely "zir", from the Principled Polysemy Model perspective. The studied applications of "zir" are mostly taken from 'Farhang-e Sokhan-e Anvari' and the Principled Polysemy Model has served as the analytical tool. Besides discussing the semantic aspects of spatial "zir", the study aims to investigate the applicability and efficiency of Principled Polysemy model in semantic analysis this specific term. In fact, we seek to know what strong or weak points the principled polysemy framework shows regarding primary sense specification and distinct senses discrimination. After the model's application on uses of "zir", its primary spatial sense was specified and next, four distinct extended senses were determined and  all of them  constituted the semantic network of "zir". The results of its semantic analysis within principled polysemy framework confirmed this model's two points of advantage compared to some other leading cognitive investigations especially Lakoff (1987); one in determining the primary sense due to considering certain linguistic criteria in the procedure, and the other in restricting the number of distinct senses by adopting a moderate view towards polysemy. However, the semantic analysis of "zir" in the adopted framework faced some challenges too, among which two more significant issues included the psychological reality of distinct senses and their high level of context-dependency.
 

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Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cooking (frying and microwave), chitosan additive and freezer storage on the fish fillet in terms of sensory and color evaluation and weight changes.
Methodes: Cultivated fish fillets, frozen at -18 ° C for 4 months. They were then transferred to the Fisheries Processing Laboratory of the Faculty of Fisheries, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, in the shortest possible time (day 0, day 2 and month 4). The fillets were frozen and cooked in a pan and microwave. The experiment was designed in 4 treatments: T₁ (fried sample without chitosan), T₂ (fried sample containing 1% acid-soluble chitosan), T₃ (microwave cooked sample without chitosan), T₄ (Microwave cooked sample containing 1% acid-soluble chitosan). Fillet weights were measured before and after cooking. Sensory evaluation and colorimetric evaluation of fillets were also performed after cooking.
 
Findings: The use of 1% acid soluble chitosan had no significant effect on sensory parameters and colorimetric factors (p> 0.05). Weight changes in fried fillets increased over time but decreased in microwave-cooked fillets over time.
Conclusion: The use of natural additives such as acid soluble chitosan 1% had no significant effect on the sensory indeces compared to the control group. In terms of colorimetric factors, chitosan had a positive effect on yellowness index. In terms of cooking and having a safe product, it is very important that the weight factor of the microwave cooked fillets is more favorable than the fried fillets.

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"Engineering, Procurement, and Construction" (EPC) is a particular form of contracting arrangement used in some industries where the EPC Contractor is made responsible for all the activities from design, procurement, construction, to commissioning and handover of the project to the End-User or Owner. In this method of execution, the employer transfers the risk of the operation to the contractor by transferring all the project activities, including the design, procurement and provision of equipment. As a result, identifying and prioritizing risks in these projects is very important for contractors in order to properly manage these risks. One of the most widely used techniques in the risk priority is FMEA. In this paper, we identify and prioritize the risks of an EPC project by combining this technique with the Analytical Network Process (ANP), which is one of the most commonly, used methods in multi criteria decision-making. The FMEA-ANP method, taking into account the cross-risk relationships, evaluates the priority of risk as compared to the FMEA method in a different way, which has a better and higher sensitivity than FMEA scores.

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Aim: Like many other countries, Iran has been exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic and its different economic and environmental implications. So, the research studies the economic and environmental consequences of COVID-19 in the Makoran coast of Sistan and Baluchistan province that supplies nearly 60% of the demand for fish in Iran.
Materials and Methods: The research is an applied study in terms of goal and a descriptive study in terms of data collection method, which was conducted by the cross-sectional survey method.
Findings: A comparison of the period of January-June 2020 (COVID-19 conditions) versus the similar period in the year 2019 (normal conditions) in the economic sector showed that the fishermen’s income, catch rate, and employment have decreased and their unemployment has increased. In the environmental sector, the pandemic and the related restrictions have increased seawater pollution and waste production.
Conclusion:  These changes, which have seemingly increased by the culmination of the COVID-19 pandemic, have had irreparable consequences for the fisheries sector.
Suggestions: Governmental support from the management of demand and supply markets and its plans to support fishermen are recommended as approaches to tackling the crisis. Given the emergence of new strains of COVID-19, such as alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and omicron, it is necessary to conduct long-term studies to determine the full range of the pandemic.
 

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Aims: Research shows that students are one of the groups at risk of Internet addiction, and it seems necessary to control their psychological and social well-being affected by Internet addiction. The expansion of various job, educational, and communication dimensions of the Internet makes clear the necessity of using this tool in different groups, especially students; therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of an educational intervention based on social cognitive theory on reducing Internet addiction in medical students of Bandar Abbas.
Materials & Methods: This semi-experimental intervention study was conducted on 201 students of Banda Abbas University of Medical Sciences in 2020. Initially, students answered a researcher-made social cognitive theory (SCT) questionnaire and Young's Internet Addiction Inventory (IAT). Then, they were placed in two intervention and control groups with the same distribution. The intervention group received educational content for six weeks to reduce Internet addiction. Two months later, two groups completed the questionnaires again, and the data were analyzed with SPSS 16 software with covariance analysis and logistic regression.
Findings: Statistically significant differences were observed between the two groups in knowledge (F=7.138; p=0.008), outcome expectation (F=7.881; p=0.006), outcome expectancies (F=8.697; p=0.004), self-efficacy to overcome obstacles (F=6.294; p=0.013), self-regulation (F=5.680; p=0.018) and emotional adjustment (F=8.664; p=0.004).
Conclusion: Educational intervention based on the social cognitive theory affects knowledge, outcome expectations, outcome expectancies, self-efficacy to overcome impediments, self-control, and emotional coping of Internet addiction.

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Aims: The present study aimed to identify the predictors of hand hygiene intention and behavior among nurses using the theory of planned behavior (TPB).
Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on nurses working in a public hospital in Tehran in 2016-2017. In total, 196 nurses were enrolled in this study and selected through random sampling. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire guided by TPB. The validity of the questionnaire was measured using the opinions of 14 scholars and professors. The content validity ratio was measured based on the Lawshi method and the content validity index was measured based on Waltz and Basel method. The test-retest and internal consistency were used to determine the reliability of the questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software 16.0 and statistical tests, including multiple regression analysis.
Findings: The attitude toward hand hygiene (p<0.001) and perceived subjective norms (p=0.012) were correlated with nurses’ intentions to hand hygiene. This set explained 56% of the variance in intention to hand hygiene. In addition, Perceived behavioral control was found as the strongest predictor of hand hygiene behavior (p<0.001), which together with subjective norms and intention could predict individuals’ behavior (R²=0.52).
Conclusion: The constructs of the TPB have predictability regarding hand hygiene behavior.

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The interest for the spatial dimensions of agricultural development has been recently increased. This paper aimed at redefining the spatial patterns of agriculture to formulate appropriate strategies based on regional potentials. A Composite Agricultural Development Indicator (CADI), which is useful for the identification of spatial structure, has been developed. The developed composite Index (CI) includes five dimensions of Agricultural Development: (1) social-cultural, (2) structural-farming, (3) technical-management, (4) economical-financial, and (5) infrastructural-services and consists of 87 indicators selected at the county level. Indicators were normalized according to a coherent framework and using the division by means technique and were combined via weightings derived from Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and Principal Components Analysis (PCA). The evaluation of agricultural development based on desired CADI was used to map the spatial development patterns at county level. Province counties are compared and ranked in order to show the spatial gap between them. Then, spatial development patterns were divided into three zones based on CADI. Results showed that the nature of spatial agricultural development firstly depends on the service and infrastructural development and secondly on utilization of natural and physical endowments.

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Theoretically and empirically, it has been often argued that production uncertainty affects the farmers’ production efficiency. Insurance can play an impactful role in reducing the uncertainty and, consequently, increasing the investment. Using multilevel models, we examined the effect of agricultural insurance programs on investment in the agricultural sector of Khorasan Razavi Province. The cross sectional data was collected by using the two-stage cluster sampling method in 2012-2013. The results indicated that the insurance background, insured cultivation area, compensation payments, and all of the socio-economic variables as well as the county and climatic situations affected the farmers' willingness to invest. Hence, insurance policies should be based on climatic conditions and particularized for the local situations of the specific counties. In addition, the payments of the compensation should be on time to encourage the investments.

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Cucumber fruits have a short shelf life in the post-harvest stage due to high water content, high metabolic activity, and spoilage caused by the growth of microorganisms. In this research, the effects of putrescine (0, 0.5, 1, and 2 mM) and chitosan (0, 0.5, 1, and 1.5%) on some characteristics of cucumber fruit during storage at 12±1 degrees Celsius during storage (0, 10, and 20 days) and one day at 25 degrees Celsius was investigated. The results showed that chitosan and putrescine significantly prevent weight loss, maintain total soluble solids, titratable acidity, pH, firmness, total chlorophyll of skin, and ascorbic acid and improve the sensory quality of cucumber fruit during storage. The lowest weight loss and the highest firmness were obtained in the treatment of 1.5% chitosan and 2 mM putrescine at 10 and 20 days of storage. Also, the highest amount of soluble solids, titratable acidity, total chlorophyll, vitamin C, total antioxidant, total phenol, and the lowest amount of pH, and decrease in sensory quality in 10 and 20 storage times related to the treatments of 1.5% chitosan and 2 mM putrescine that showed a significant difference with the control treatment. 1% and 1.5% chitosan coating treatments showed no significant difference in other traits measured during storage, except for weight loss. It seems that pretreatment of putrescine (2 mM) and chitosan coating (1 to 1.5%) can maintain the quality of fruits for a more extended period while increasing the storage life of cucumber.
 

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Gardening products, like apple, are exposed to a variety of risks caused by unfavorable weather conditions. This kind of risk is unavoidable, but manageable. Agricultural insurance is an effective scheme in weather risk management. Nevertheless, current insurance schemes have challenges, such as high transaction costs, and problems caused by asymmetric information, i.e. adverse selection and moral hazard. Therefore, this study aimed to present an appropriate insurance scheme for apple production in Damavand, the so-called “weather-based index insurance”. In this regard, the information on apple yield and weather variables was collected between 1987-2016, from Iranian Agriculture Jihad Organization and the local meteorological station. The dependency structure between apple yield and weather variables was investigated by C-Vine Copula as a joint distribution to compute the expected loss. Then, according to the expected loss, weather-based index insurance premium was measured. The premium amount was equal to Thousand Rials 32,546.11 in the crop year 2016-17, which is different from the current insurance premium. This difference is because of the distinct nature of the two insurance schemes and the imperative and official mode of current insurance scheme.
 

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Teachers evaluation as one of the essential educational needs has an important role in improving educational quality and developing smart schools. The lack of implementation of a systematic and scientific evaluation system not only will discourage committed teachers, but also will have consequences such as reduced commitment and leave the organizational work. Therefore, the present study attempts to present a fuzzy inference system (FIS) model to evaluate the performance of teachers working in smart schools of Yazd province. In this regard, after reviewing the literature and identifying the factors affecting performance evaluation in two sections of computer literacy and classroom performance, the fuzzy Delphi technique was used to get experts agreement (20 experts) on the model’s final criteria. The ambiguity and complexity of performance appraisal criteria, especially qualitative criteria, as well as the use of verbal variables for extracting expert opinions, led to the use of fuzzy inference system for analyzing model components. In the case of the under study schools, the output of the system indicates that the status of smart school teachers in the basic courses and content production criteria is at intermediate level, in the Internet and educational supplementary software is at a relatively high level, and in the educational content development and electronic evaluation is at a low level. Based on these findings, teachers performance in smart schools was evaluated as medium level. Finally, some suggestions were proposed to improve the current status of smart schools.