The lived experiences of becoming a homeless person with addiction in Tehran: how they are withdrawn from the mainstream community?

Understanding the experiences of street addicted people can help clarify the process of engaging people with this social problem. This study aims to discover the challenges of drug-dependent street people by exploring their lived experiences. This study was conducted using content analysis of qualitative interviews with 22 street recruited from within compulsory drug treatment centers in Tehran. Participants were selected through purposive sampling and their experiences of homelessness and addiction were collected through a semi-structured interview. After analyzing the data, three categories and eight sub-categories were determined. The main categories included instability, social distrust, and economic vulnerability. Instability includes experiences such as rejection from their home, street attraction, and avoiding returning home. The social distrust theme consists of experiencing the stigma related to addiction and high-risk behaviors. The economic vulnerability encompasses gradual capital loss and weakening their work status in the context of a weak economic foundation. Dependent drug use added to those isolating experiences leads to weakened family ties, and social and economic interactions and finally results in being disconnected completely from the community mainstream.     

Ross B., Segal C., (2021) Making the Ask: The Artful Science of High-Value Fundraising. Practical Inspiration Publishing

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Limiting Tail Dependence Copulas

The limiting lower-tail dependence copula (LLTDC) is defined as the copula of random variables which are right-truncated at thresholds tending to their left endpoints. This article shows LLTDCs are truncation-invariant and belong to the Ahmadi-Clayton family. Accordingly, it follows that limiting upper-tail dependence copulas are members of the survival Ahmadi-Clayton family.     

Integration of process planning and production planning and control in cellular manufacturing

Organisations willing to succeed in global competition have to integrate their internal and external processes. This especially includes planning and production control (PPC) processes. Optimised allocation of the production resources and quick response to demand changes result in lower cost and improvement of production performance. Practitioners and researchers have been trying to achieve these goals using production planning techniques. Although the results are significant, it seems necessary to integrate production operations in order to improve the production performance. The goals, information and decisions taken in production planning and control and process planning are often very different and difficult to integrate in Cellular Manufacturing (CM) environments. Designing an efficient PPC system and integrating it with process planning in a cellular environment is of the same importance. The following paper proposes first a comprehensive framework of integrated process planning and production planning and control in CM. Then, with respect to this framework and utilising the domain knowledge in the area of CM systems, an integrated model based on Integrated Definition Modeling Language is developed. The application of the models has been considered as a case study for a production system in electronics and telecommunication sector in a plant in Iran. The validity and completeness of the proposed model is tested by a panel of experts in the areas of production planning and control in CM environments.     

GLOBALIZATION AND KNOWLEDGE HIERARCHY THROUGH THE EYES OF A QUIZ SHOW

The study compares the quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire in seven countries – America, Germany, Italy, Russia, Poland, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Through content analysis of 1,888 questions that were collected from 65 programs, this work aims to ascertain the extent of globalization and the structure of knowledge hierarchy, as they find expression in a successful international television format. Three cultural profiles emerge: American, western European and eastern European, which also characterizes the Arab world. The American model features a high percentage of questions on light entertainment and a low amount of language questions. Quizzes from west Europe offer a high proportion of language questions and a medium amount of questions on light entertainment. The Arab quiz and quizzes from east Europe are noted for keeping a higher amount of questions on history and language and a low proportion of questions on light entertainment. In terms of knowledge hierarchy, in all the countries, academic knowledge yields higher prizes than everyday knowledge.     

Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Female Genital Self-Image Scale (FGSIS) in Iranian Female College Students

The aim of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties of a translated and culturally adapted Iranian version of the Female Genital Self-Image Scale (FGSIS-I) in a sample of college women. Further, the relationship between women's self-image, body appreciation, sexual functioning, and gynecological exam behavior was explored. A sample of 1,877 female students from five different universities across Qazvin and Tehran completed the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), the FGSIS-I, and a gynecological exam behavior questionnaire. Good to excellent internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, and convergent and construct validity were found. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) both provided a two-factor structure for the FGSIS-I. The validity of the FGSIS-I in predicting gynecological exam behavior of college women was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The final model accounted for 33% of the variance in gynecological exam behavior (p < 0.01). In conclusion, the FGSIS-I was found to be a highly valid and reliable instrument to assess female genital self-image in Iranian women.