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Acute shortage of potable water and energy supplies is expected to raise in developing countries in the near future. One solid way to address these issues is to exploit renewable energy resources efficiently. Hence, this study aims to investigate wind and solar energy use in the coastal areas of southern Iran for renewable-powered seawater desalination and hydrogen production systems.

To accomplish the aforementioned purpose, five areas most prone to the problems in Iran, namely, Mahshahr, Jask and Chabahar ports and Kish and Hormoz islands were scrutinized. To ascertain the amount of wind and solar energy available in the areas, Weibull distribution function, Angstrom–Prescott equation and HOMER software were used.

The findings indicated that wind energy density in Kish was 2,014.86 (kWh/m².yr) and solar energy density in Jask equaled to 2,255.7 (kWh/m².yr) which possessed the best conditions among the areas under study. Moreover, three commercial wind turbines and three photovoltaic systems were examined for supplying energy needed by the water desalination and hydrogen production systems. The results showed that application of wind turbines with rated power of 660, 750 and 900 kWh in Kish could result in desalting 934,145, 1,263,339 and 2,000,450 (m³/yr) of seawater or producing 14,719, 20,896 and 31,521 (kg/yr) of hydrogen, respectively. Additionally, use of photovoltaic systems with efficiency of %14.4, %17.01 and %21.16 in Jask could desalinate 287, 444 and 464 (m³/yr) of seawater or generate 4.5, 7 and 7.3 (kg/yr) of hydrogen, respectively.

Compared to the huge extent of water shortage and environmental pollution, there has not been conducted enough studies to obtain broader view regarding use of renewable energies to solve these issues in Iran. Therefore, this study tries to close this gap and to give other developing nations the idea of water desalination and hydrogen production via renewable energies.

This paper aims to investigate the techno-economic feasibility of wind power potential for a tribal region located in Gachsaran in the South-West of Iran.

Techno-economic feasibility study and analysis of data were conducted by HOMER v2.68 software. Simulations and calculations were performed for 10 kW turbines, 8 Trojan L16P batteries, 12 kW converter and 12 kW generator. To anticipate the pay back period (PBP) or the time required to reach profitability, an engineering economic method named net equivalent uniform annual was applied.

The power plant construction cost, including the initial cost, installing, replacing and project operating costs for useful life of 20 years was equal to $40970. The net income of the project for each year was $8538 and the calculations were carried out using interest rate of 18%. Results indicated that PBP was 13 years which is lower than 20 years useful life of the turbine. Therefore, it is economically feasible to use this type of turbine for the nominated region.

There has not been conducted a research regarding remote areas in Iran; therefore, this study aims at closing this research gap. Moreover, this method could be used for any remote areas in any other developing country.

Every day, the sun provides by far more energy than the amount necessary to meet the whole world’s energy demand. Solar energy, unlike fossil fuels, does not suffer from depleting resource and also releases no greenhouse gas emissions when being used. Hence, using solar irradiance to produce electricity via photovoltaic (PV) systems has significant benefits which can lead to a sustainable and clean future. In this regard, the purpose of this study is first to assess the technical and economic viability of solar power generation sites in the capitals of the states of Canada. Then, a novel integrated technique is developed to prioritize all the alternatives.

In this study, ten provinces in Canada are evaluated for the construction of solar power plants. The new hybrid approach composed of data envelopment analysis (DEA), balanced scorecard (BSC) and game theory (GT) is implemented to rank the nominated locations from techno-economic-environmental efficiency aspects. The input data are obtained using HOMER software.

Applying the proposed hybrid approach, the order of high to low efficiency locations was found as Winnipeg, Victoria, Edmonton, Quebec, Halifax, St John’s, Ottawa, Regina, Charlottetown and Toronto. Construction of ten solar plants in the ten studied locations was assessed and it was ascertained that usage of solar energy in Winnipeg, Victoria and Edmonton would be economically and environmentally justified.

As to novelty, it should be clarified that the authors propose an effective hybrid method combining DEA, BSC and GT for prioritizing all available scenarios concerned with the construction of a solar power plant.

In hot and dry climates, air conditioning accounts for a large portion of total energy consumption; therefore, this paper aims to investigate the impact of sol-air temperature and ground temperature on the loss of cooling energy in hot and dry regions of Iran.

In line with this objective, the values of sol-air temperature along different directions and ground temperature at different depths were assessed with respect to climatic data of Yazd City. The impact of sol-air temperature and ground temperature on the rate of heat loss was investigated. So, energy loss of the walls aligned to four primary directions was calculated. This process was repeated for a 36 m² building with three different shape factors. All analyses were conducted for the period from May to September, during which buildings need to be cooled by air conditioners.

Numerical analyses conducted for hot and dry climate show that sol-air temperature leads to a 41-17 per cent increase in the wall’s energy loss compared with ambient temperature. Meanwhile, building the wall below the surface leads to a significant reduction in energy loss. For example, building the wall 400 cm below the surface leads to about 74.8-79.2 per cent energy saving compared with above ground design. The results also show that increasing the direct contact between soil and building envelope decreases the energy loss, so energy loss of a building that is built 400 cm below the surface is 53.7-55.3 per cent lower than that of a building built above the surface.

The impact of sol-air temperature and ground temperature on the cooling energy loss of a building in hot and dry climate was investigated. Numerical analysis shows that solar radiation increases heat loss from building envelope. Soil temperature fluctuations decrease with depth. Heat loss from building envelope in an underground building is lower than that from building envelope in a building built above the ground. Three different shape factors showed that sol-air temperature has the maximum impact on square-shaped plan and minimal impact on buildings with east-west orientation.

In May 2014, a new reform in the health sector of Iran was implemented called “health evolution plan.” In the first phase of this reform, the government reduced out-of-pocket payments for service delivery by paying subsidies to the services and after that a revision was done to the medical services values book to improve equity and increase motivation of health professions. One of the affected services in this reform was coronary artery bypass surgery. The purpose of this paper is to show the effects of HEP on costs of coronary artery bypass surgery.

A before-after study was done for this purpose and 167 patients’ total costs and out-of-pocket payments were calculated for the years 2013 (before) and 2014 (after) the reform in three private hospitals of Rasht city, Iran. Econometrics models were estimated after adjustment of confounding variables.

The results of this study showed that surgery costs increased significantly from $1,643.3 to 2,119.5. Nursing and other costs increased significantly from $290.3 to 414.2 and anesthetize costs increased from $619.2 to 947.01. The results of regression model showed that total costs increased $3,008.6 after adjustment of confounders (p-value=0.037). However, no significant changes were found for out-of-pocket payments and out-of-pocket percentage.

The study findings revealed that HTP was not successful enough in financial protection in the private sector.

The aim of this chapter is to review and illustrate a step-by-step guideline in conducting fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) in tourism and hospitality studies. As an emerging method, fsQCA is simultaneously quantitative and qualitative in nature which makes it an appropriate method for social science disciplines including tourism and hospitality area because of complex nature of relationships between multiple variables where theories and models are underdeveloped. Unlike conventional statistical techniques, fsQCA is an asymmetrical analysis technique that provides a holistic view and interrelationships among several conditions using Boolean algebra. The fsQCA analyses produce comprehensive assessment by revealing causal combinations of antecedents to predict an outcome; and identify sufficient configurations (i.e., causal combinations and recipes) and necessary condition/s. By utilizing this method, researchers would be able to produce complex, comprehensive, and robust results.

Given the competitive environment and complicated relationships in supply chains in the modern era, it is important to take into account internal and external risks. In addition, proper methods must be designed to evaluate these risks correctly. The purpose of this paper is to provide a suitable map based on the artificial neural network technique to assess and classify the risk levels of retailers who have interconnected rules in the downstream of the supply chain.

In this research, a model for risk assessment with a hexagonal grid and 2D self-organizing map was applied.

According to the results, the model used in the study can provide a basis for classification of retailers based on the specified risk levels defined by the experts and risk managers of the company. Also with the model’s visual output, managers can have a better understanding of the distribution of the risk level of retailers.

The proposed methodology can be adopted by managers to assess the risk of members involved in the supply chain, helping them to formulate the risk mitigation strategies based on the risk levels.

As a part of the risk management process, organizations can use this developed method to reduce the existing risks imposed by the members or customers on the company.

It has been suggested that there is a link between the dietary intake of certain nutrients and the risk of prostate cancer. The aim of this study is to examine the associations between dietary intakes of all nutrients and the risk of prostate cancer in Kermanshah.

This case-control study was conducted in Kermanshah, a province in the west of Iran in November of 2016. The sample consisted of 50 patients with confirmed prostate cancer, and 150 healthy men who matched in age with these cases and did not have any symptoms of prostate disorder were chosen as controls. Dietary intakes were collected by a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire that contained 147 food items and were then analyzed by Nutritionist 4 software.

After adjustment for potential confounding factor, highest tertile compared to lowest tertile of dietary vitamin E intake [odds ratio (OR) = 0.21; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.05-0.89], lycopene intake (OR = 0.11; 95% CI = 0.01-0.86) and magnesium intake (OR = 0.02; 95% CI = 0.01-0.55) had a protective effect on the incidence of prostate cancer. However, there were no associations between dietary intakes of fiber, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B₁₂, folate and calcium with prostate cancer.

The finding suggests that the dietary intakes of vitamin E, lycopene and magnesium could decrease the risk of prostate cancer. Nevertheless, dietary intake of other nutrients such as fiber, calcium, vitamins D, A, B₁₂ and folate was not associated with prostate cancer.