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Considering that the historic city of Yazd was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and given the necessity of improving the environmental qualities due to the increased number of domestic and foreign tourists, the concept of acoustic comfort seems to be of considerable importance. In this regard, the purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the role of sound space components affecting acoustic comfort in the historic urban spaces of the City of Yazd and its two historic squares named Khan Square and Fahadan Square.

Accordingly, a total of 632 foreign tourists visiting these squares were asked to enumerate different sounds they could hear in the square and identify their relation with acoustic comfort. In terms of the objectives, this is an applied research using survey and correlation methods. In addition, ANOVA and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data.

The results of this study indicated that motorcycle and automobile noises were considered as the most important sounds disturbing the acoustic comfort, and sounds of children’s play, water, talking and businesses were the most important factors promoting the acoustic comfort in the historic squares.

The paper highlights the soundscape and acoustic conditions that affect the tourisms in the traditional and tourism square in historical context of Yazd city.

The purpose of this paper is standardize and provide a multidimensional measure for assessing human resources competencies (HRCs) scale.

The data collected in this study were 2018 from the 234 people selected from 603 managers and experts in human resources of selected firms existing in the Yazd Industrial Town randomly. Based on the model of HRCs designed by Ulrich et al. (2008), a questionnaire was developed to assess HRCs. Internal consistency and split-half methods were used to obtain the reliability of the instrument. Content validity and construct validity of the instrument were also assessed through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

This paper elucidates a key scale for assessing HRCs including three dimensions: knowledge business, functional expertise and managing change. Also, results revealed that two items were then dropped from the questionnaire as they were unreliable, and a final 31 items were extracted to form the scale for assessing HRCs. The coefficients for Cronbach’s α and split-half were 0.963 and 0.947, respectively. In EFA, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test yielded optimal 0.962, and Bartlett’s test was statistically significant. Additionally, three factors with eigenvalues higher than 1 explained 63% of the total variance. Hence, CFA confirmed the results from EFA too. Moreover, the model proved to enjoy a good fit.

The scale is useful for both researchers and practitioners. Also, the scale provides researchers with a sought-after conceptualization of HRCs.

Consequently, considering that the validity and reliability indices of HRCs were estimated to be desirable, the authors believe that the developed questionnaire can be used as an appropriate scale for measuring HRCs in future research.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes of library and information science (LIS) students from Alzahra, Yazd and Payamenoor universities toward e-learning, while aiming to develop awareness in the broader LIS community of alternative and supplement solutions in the LIS educational arena.

This is a research survey conducted amongst 142 students. Data were collected via a researcher-designed questionnaire and analyzed with SPSS software using descriptive and analytical methods.

Based on the findings, a relatively favorable attitude of e-learning education exists, indicating the existence of a supportive culture that can offer this type of education. According to the findings, with the provision of necessary equipment and the possibility of other incentives, e.g. running workshops, a supportive culture would be more advanced. Results also revealed that e-learning systems are more effective for the purpose of some courses that are related to the use of computers and the Internet, courses relating to information sources and courses associated with the application of new technologies in libraries.

The emergence of new concepts and the advancement of technologies demands that LIS schools update their curricula. The findings of this paper ascertain the importance of equipping graduates with the knowledge and skills associated with e-learning technologies. LIS students need to gain specialized skills in the application of new technologies in libraries; the implementation of an e-learning system by LIS schools, and the delivery of electronic programs, provides an environment for them in which they experience the application of new technologies.

Nowadays, to develop innovative activities in research and development units, it is desirable to rely on the concept of open innovation to take actions towards the identification of external capabilities of an organization and external knowledge acquisition. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the impact of external technology acquisition (ETA), external technology exploitation (ETE) and culture of innovation (IC) on open innovation (OI) using SEM approach and then examine the amount of the impact of open innovation on organizational performance (OP) and value creation (VC).

This study was an applied survey in terms of research purpose and data collection method. The statistical population included all companies in Yazd Science and Technology Park (STP). To collect the data, 109 questionnaires were distributed. The content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts’ comments, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was calculated equal to 0.873 for reliability.

The results indicated, ETA, ETE and IC had significant and positive effects on OI, and OI by itself had a significant and positive impact on OP and VC. However, the hypothesis of the significant and positive effect of VC on OP was rejected.

Considering the importance of innovative activities of companies in STPs and the role of OI in achieving the goals of idea-driven companies, the present study evaluated the effects of factors affecting the fulfillment of OI in companies based in STPs in the Yazd province of Iran.

The inscription of Yazd historical fabric in United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage list has provided the city with the opportunity of international competence and to achieve a global identity. Fahadan is one of the nine historical quarters and the core of formation of the Yazd city. Fahadan is one of the nine historical quarters and the core of formation of Yazd city. The article intends to provide suitable policies for converting it into a sample creative quarter in Yazd historical fabric.

The article benefits from qualitative research and the strategic planning method based on a creative city approach, uses SWOT technique (a technique for finding an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) for situation analysis and the Oregon model for visioning.

Two categories of hard and soft factors play a role in transitioning Fahadan quarter into a creative quarter. By expanding the scope of jobs related to jewelry, and creating its supporting activities in the food and leisure sector, a creative economy can be discovered in Fahadan quarter which alongside reinforcement of unique physical features of the area, forms a creative place. Its goal will be viewed as the place where artisans pave their way for reaching a creative quarter with new management.

The research presents policies to realize soft and hard factors required for creativity in the quarter, and shows step by step a small-scale pattern in the context of urban creativity planning, that can be used in historical fabrics with similar situation.

In this way, the aim of this study is to expand and evelop the application of this technique in FMEA to rank failure modes of ESQ of academic libraries in an intuitionistic fuzzy environment. Assessment of electronic service quality (ESQ) of libraries is significantly important according to their major roles. It should be noted that the ESQ has a significant impact on customer satisfaction, which improves organizational performance. Accordingly, low ESQ means waste of organizational resources and poor user satisfaction. So, there is a dire need to reflect reasons inducing failure modes in academic library ESQ. Thus, investigation of failure modes affecting academic library ESQ is highly important. One solution in this area is utilization of the intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) as one of the widely used methods for prediction and identification of failure modes.

The present study in terms of objective is applied and in terms of the type of method is descriptive-analytical. The research sample included four experts of Yazd academic Libraries (Iran). To collect data, three types of questionnaires were distributed among experts. The purpose of the first questionnaire was to identify and reach an agreement on e-library failure modes. Type II questionnaire was used to determine the importance of identified risk factors and Type III questionnaire was used to prioritize the factors.

Results indicate that the difficulty of using websites, lack of provided information feedback to users and lack of links on the website to users' are the main priorities for improving ESQ in the studied academic libraries.

In this approach, the Intuitionistic fuzzy Elimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution method were used to rank failure modes in academic library ESQ within the FMEA framework.]

The present study seeks to design an index model of satisfaction among Iranian students who are studying at public universities in this country.

In this research, data were collected in two stages: in the first stage, the data related to satisfaction indices were collected from 62 experts on pedagogical science and marketing management. In the second step, the data were collected from 1,404 students and were analysed by fuzzy analytic hierarchical process method, interpretive structural modelling and structural equation modelling.

The results of this study showed that three variables “perceived quality”, “organization image” and “Student relationship management” are reliable as indicators of student satisfaction. Also, contrary to the results of previous studies, the variable of expectations cannot predict the satisfaction of the students.

Models of satisfaction have been designed in different fields. Also, in the measurement of satisfaction, attention to the field and customization is approved by researchers. Accordingly, the present study tries to design indices of satisfaction among students of state universities in Iran. It also pointed out the effect of customization on the formation of satisfaction at the Iranian and other universities.

The purpose of this paper is to present the perception of service quality. The measurement of service quality has grown significantly in importance over recent years. However, since customers' perceptions of service quality are expressed subjectively in vague linguistic terms therefore, a fuzzy approach to service quality of an academic library is applied and the gap between the student's expectations and perceptions analyzed.

The LibQUAL method is applied to identify the gap between customer expectation and perceptions of the actual service received. The linguistic procedure is developed considering four dimensions of LibQUAL. The quality analyses are based on the non‐parametric rank‐based statistics (Wilcoxon's two‐sample rank sum statistic) and extended to fuzzy data which consequently reinforces results in comparison with crisp data.

It is found that there is no gap between the students' expectations and perceptions in three dimensions of “affect of service”, “library as a place”, and “personal control”. But, from the students' point of view, regarding the “access to information” dimension, there is a significant difference between the students' expectations and perceptions.

The instrument that is administered is a paper questionnaire version based on the 2002 model of LibQUAL.

It is felt that application of this fuzzy procedure has implications on possible constraints on the statistics of interest, as well as on the p‐value of any associated significance tests.

This paper is possibly the first to demonstrate the application of fuzzy logic to the LibQUAL model. This fuzzy procedure persuades possibility constraints on the statistic of interest, as well as on the p‐value of an associated significance test. This fuzzy procedure persuades possibility constraints on the statistic of interest, as well as on the p‐value of an associated significance test.

Fabric-object friction force is a fundamental factor in cloth simulation. A large number of parameters influence the frictional properties of fabrics such as fabric structure, yarn structure, and inherent properties of component fibers. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel technique for modeling fabric-object friction force in knitted fabric simulation based on the mass spring model.

In this technique, unlike other studies, distribution of friction coefficient over the fabric surface is not uniform and depends on the fabric structure. The main reason for considering non-uniform distribution is that in various segments of fabric, contact percent of fabric-object is different.

The proposed technique and common methods based on friction coefficient uniform distribution are used to simulate the frictional behavior of knitted fabrics. The results show that simulation error values for proposed technique and common methods are 2.7 and 9.4 percent as compared with the experimental result, respectively.

In the existing methods of the friction force modeling, the friction coefficient of fabric is assumed uniform. But this assumption is not correct because fabric does not have an isotropic structure. Thus in this study, the friction coefficient distribution is considered based on fabric structure to achieve more of realistic simulations.

Tourism industry is a profitable resource for countries and considered one of the main sources of income and job creation for economic development. Among the various types of tourism, medical tourism and its subsets are of great significance owing to their capabilities and competitive advantages. In this regard, the purpose of this research is to provide a framework to categorize customers based on the Zeithaml pyramid and then identify and provide strategies to create loyalty and attract customers of this industry.

This study proposed a framework for medical tourists' satisfaction and loyalty. First, by studying the literature and data gathering from Yazd (one of the cities of Iran), the effective factors on the loyalty and attraction of medical tourists were identified. These factors have been prioritized for the medical tourists who are in the platinum category by the Pareto technique and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. Next, the strategies provided by experts for loyalty and attraction of medical tourists were examined. Finally, the house of quality (HOQ) as the first matrix in quality functional deployment (QFD) was used to provide operational strategies for medical tourism satisfaction. The statistical population of this research consists of medical tourists, academic experts and active physicians of medical tourism in Yazd, one of the cities of Iran.

The study results indicate the importance of “hospital reputation” in medical tourists' satisfaction. Also, “achieving international standards”, “periodic customer satisfaction assessment” and “paying attention to social responsibilities” are recognized as the most important strategies to achieve the loyalty of the most profitable group of customers, namely platinum.

This study covers both theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretically, this study developed a new framework for medical tourists' satisfaction by the Zeithaml matrix, TOPSIS, Pareto technique and QFD method. Furthermore, practically this study helps practitioners of medical tourism in medical tourists' satisfaction and loyalty.

In this study, in addition to identifying the effective factors on the loyalty and attracting medical tourists, a new framework was developed for medical tourists' satisfaction by segmentation the tourism by the Zeithaml matrix and providing operational strategies by the QFD technique.