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Energy has a strategic role in the social and economic development of countries. Affordability, accessibility and availability of energy sources are the priorities of the governments in energy supply. Therefore, understanding the robustness of energy supply is an important subject of energy researchers and policymakers. This paper aims to analyze the robustness of the electricity system at the national level.

First, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis is implemented for a selected case study. Then, the expert panel weighed the parameters’ effect on sustainable power generation, the survey is quantified using fuzzy logic. Finally, cross functional analysis is applied to evaluate the influence/dependence of the parameters.

The results show three determinant parameters which have the most influence on the system: fluctuations in oil prices, governmental acts and sanctions against the country. The most dependent parameters, as objectives variables, are the share of renewables and distributed generation (DG), system reliability, power generation diversity and transmission efficiency.

Using future studies methods in the energy level at the nation level has been done for the first time in the current work.

The purpose of this paper is to present and evaluate the performance of innovation systems by considering two indicators of efficiency and effectiveness. The scope of the evaluation is globally and due to the situation of each country, the suggested strategies are proposed to maintain the status quo or move toward the desired situation for countries.

The approach is to compare and benchmark the countries in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of their innovation system. The Global Innovation Index report’s input-to-output ratio and the global competitiveness report are used for the assessment.

The findings indicate that countries such as China, Switzerland and the USA have an efficient and effective innovation system. However, the innovation systems in countries such as Brazil and Zimbabwe are not only inefficient but also ineffective. The findings also indicate that the innovation systems of countries such as Iran, Armenia and Egypt are efficient but ineffective. Finally, the authors can name Australia, Qatar and Russia as countries with effective but inefficient innovation systems.

Assessment of national innovation system using efficiency and effectiveness performances is done for the first time at the global stage.

Science and technology diplomacy (STD) is an emerging area in the field of public policy and technology management. The purpose of this study is to overview the concept of STD based on the two approaches “Science and Technology” and “Diplomacy” to explain its necessity for Non-Aligned Movement member countries.

To design the work, principal domains and sub-domains of STD are identified based on the thematic analysis. By using MAXQDA software, the initial codes are analyzed and validated for the case study. Then, six areas and 29 sub-areas are identified based on the fuzzy Delphi and the framework is designed.

STD is defined from six scopes, including political, economics, law and legal issues, social sciences, philosophy and science and technology. Each scope has its own mechanism that is discussed in the article.

This work is one of the first in the literature of science and technology policy making.

This paper aims to discuss a model for diffusion of innovation among the professionals of primary health-care centers in Finland. The authors answer partially to one of the important questions of the policymakers titled “How primary health-care centers can move toward systems that continuously improve their innovation?”.

A systematic-qualitative framework based on an action research is presented to assess dynamics of diffusion of innovation in the primary health-care centers in Finland.

The authors conceptualize the innovation systems of primary health-care systems by three different diagrams: subsystem diagram, policy structure diagram and causal loop diagram. The investigation reviews innovation process of Finnish professionals (staffs, nurses and doctors) in the frame of a systematic-qualitative analysis. The relationships and consequences of decisions and policies are discussed with a new way of thinking in the health-care sector studies.

The implemented systematic-qualitative research in this article is an innovative approach in the innovation studies of the health-care systems.

Despite long decades of research studies in the field of urban neighborhood resilience, there are still some unknown dimensions. In this regard, the study aims to develop a new framework for assessment of physical and social resilience at neighborhood level against earthquake.

Accordingly, first all indicators affecting earthquake resilience at neighborhood level have been determined. Subsequently, they have been weighted and prioritized, using analytical hierarchy process technique. One of the neighborhoods of Tehran city in Iran was selected for the case study. Then, four criteria of “robustness,” “redundancy,” “rapidity” and “resourcefulness” were considered as the basis for assessing neighborhood resilience.

It is shown that besides four well-known criteria, four other criteria including “adaptability,” “regularity,” “density” and “efficiency” should also be considered to assess earthquake resilience at neighborhood level. Therefore, a new framework is developed and formulated at this level. Paying attention to all eight criteria, the appropriate interventions to improve resiliency can be addressed.

This study proposes several practical approaches toward the more resilient neighborhoods against earthquakes. By considering the complexity and dynamic characteristics of earthquake resilience, it recommends the implementation of all resilience phases at every neighborhood to increase resilience.

This study proposes a framework in which in addition to physical and tangible indicators of resilience, non-physical and intangible ones are presented. Also, it is shown that besides well-known criteria, other criteria should also be considered using practical and community-based approaches.

As a flood-prone region in Iran, Golestan province has encountered various disasters in its history. The last one occurred in March 2019, affected Aq-Qala County and caused irreparable physical, economic, social and environmental problems. The purpose of this study is to investigate the process of providing shelter in emergency, rehabilitation and reconstruction phases after the floods in the villages of Aq-Qala.

A research method is a hybrid approach. The collection of data involved a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches in addition to reviewing the documented texts in resources to collect the required data using observations, field survey activities, questionnaires and in-depth interviews. From April 2019 to December 2019, nine separate visits have occurred to collect the needed information.

This paper shows dissatisfaction with providing shelter and attempts to identify the factors which caused the challenges. The findings revealed issues such as hygienic problems in collective camps, lack of thermal resistance in temporary accommodations and rising material prices. These findings lead to a contributive list of suggestions avoiding the recurrence of the harms in the future.

This study proposes solutions and approaches to improve the post-flood settlement process for possible floods in the future such as equipped camps, proper temporary housing, monitoring the reconstruction and the price of the materials. If these approaches are used by authorities and people in similar rural areas, the long-term effects of inadequate post-flood shelter can be reduced.

The USA is one of the largest oil producers in the world. For this purpose, the authors model and predict the US conventional and unconventional oil production during the period 2000–2030.

In this research, the system dynamics (SD) model has been used. In this model, economic, technical, geopolitical, learning-by-doing and environmental (social costs of carbon) issues are considered.

The results of the simulation, after successfully passing the validation test, show that the US unconventional oil production rate under the optimistic scenario (high oil prices) in 2030 is about 12.62 million barrels/day (mb/day), under the medium oil price scenario is about 11.4 mb/day and under the pessimistic scenario (low oil price) is about 10.18 mb/day. The results of US conventional oil production forecasting under these three scenarios (high, medium and low oil prices) show oil production of 4.62, 4.26 and 3.91 mb/day, respectively.

The contribution of this study is important in several respects: First, by modeling SD that technical, economic, proven reserves and technology factors are considered, this paper models US conventional and unconventional oil production separately. In this modeling, nonlinear relationships and feedback loops are presented to better understand the relationships between variables. Second, given the importance of environmental issues, the modeling of social costs of CO₂ emissions per barrel of oil is also presented and considered as a part of oil production costs. Third, conventional and unconventional US oil production by 2030 is forecast separately, the results of this study could help policymakers to develop unconventional oil and plan for energy self-sufficiency.

This study aims at enhancing the performance of a 16-stage axial compressor and improving the operating stability. The adopted approaches for upgrading the compressor are artificial neural network, optimization algorithms and computational fluid dynamics.

The process starts with developing several data sets for certain 2D sections by means of training several artificial neural networks (ANNs) as surrogate models. Afterward, the trained ANNs are applied to the 3D shape optimization along with parametrization of the blade stacking line. Specifying the significant design parameters, a wide range of geometrical variations are considered by implementation of appropriate number of design variables. The optimized shapes are analyzed by applying computational fluid dynamic to obtain the best geometry.

3D optimal results show improvements, especially in the case of decreasing or elimination of near walls corner separations. In addition, in comparison with the base geometry, numerical optimization shows an increase of 1.15 per cent in total isentropic efficiency in the first four stages, which results in 0.6 per cent improvement for the whole compressor, even while keeping the rest of the stages unchanged. To evaluate the numerical results, experimental data are compared with obtained data from simulation. Based on the results, the highest absolute relative deviation between experimental and numerical static pressure is approximately 7.5 per cent.

The blades geometry of an axial compressor used in a heavy-duty gas turbine is optimized by applying artificial neural network, and the results are compared with the base geometry numerically and experimentally.

Obesity is a major risk factor for chronic renal fibrosis and kidneys’ structural and inflammatory impairments. This study aims to examine the possible therapeutic effects of vitamin D supplementation against renal inflammatory and kidney’s structural fibrosis and degeneration.

Forty male Wistar rats were divided into two groups for 16 weeks: normal diet (ND) and high-fat diet (HFD); then, each group was subdivided into two groups including ND, ND + vitamin D and HFD, HFD + vitamin D. Vitamin D supplementation was done for five weeks at 500 IU/kg dosage. Renal tissue concentrations of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin 6, interleukin 1 beta, monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1 and transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β), serum values of lipids, markers of glucose homeostasis and urea, creatinine and uric acid and renal tissue histological and structural changes were determined.

HFD feeding caused remarkable histological and structural changes including higher TNF-α, MCP-1 and TGF-β concentrations in renal tissues of rats, whereas vitamin D has potent anti-inflammatory effects (P = 0.036, 0.047 and 0.02, respectively). Vitamin D administration also reduced urea and uric acid concentrations (P = 0.023 and 0.049, respectively). Moreover, vitamin D reduced glomerulomegaly, reduced lipid accumulation and limited dilated Bowman’s space in rats and improved glycemic status by increasing insulin (P = 0.04) and reducing insulin resistance (P = 0.006).

The current study has some limitations. It was better to measure the level of inflammatory cytokines’ expression in the kidney tissues. Additionally, the measurement of baseline values of inflammatory cytokines was not possible because of the possibility of animals’ drop-out.

According to the study findings, vitamin D treatment in the current report showed a significant therapeutic role in reducing inflammation, improving glycemic and lipid abnormalities and structural and histological modifications in renal tissues of rats. These findings have a great value because after confirming in a human model, vitamin D can be suggested as a potential therapeutic tool in clinical practice.

After being confirmed by other animal or human researches, the results of the current work could have great social implications by reducing the prevalence of obesity-related renal complications and highlighting the beneficial roles of vitamin D.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the histological and inflammatory changes in the kidneys and metabolic parameters in the HFD induced rats and also clarified the therapeutic roles of vitamin D in ameliorating the inflammatory, histological, metabolic and functional changes in the kidneys of obese rats.