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Heavy metals constitute one of the most hazardous substances that could be accumulated in biota coming from human activities such as agricultural and industrial wastes. This paper aims to study the levels of some of the most common heavy metals in muscles of the fish caught in the Karun River (Ahvaz, Iran) and to assess the health risks associated with their consumption.

In present study, the concentrations of three heavy metals (Pb, Cd and Cu) in the muscle of highly consumed fish species Ctenopharyngodon Idella (Cyprinidae) collected from three selected markets (Khoram Kooshk, Ahvaz-e Qadim and Padad Shahr; total number of samples was 45) in Ahvaz city and human health risk associated with their consumption were detected by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS).

The results indicated that the highest and lowest accumulated metal concentrations were related to Cu (20.36 ± 0.84) and Cd (0.53 ± 0.02), respectively. In addition, the mean difference for Pb and Cu across two pairwise of sampling sites were significant (Ahvaz-e Qadim and Khoram Kooshk, P for Pb = 0.025, P for Cu = 0.033; Ahvaz-e Qadim and Padad Shahr, p for Pb = 0.018, p for Cu = 0.039). The estimated daily intake of all metals in muscles of fish in this study were below the legal limit, and mean differences were not statistically significant among the sampling sites, except for Cu (Ahvaz-e Qadim and Khoram Kooshk, p = 0.048; Ahvaz-e Qadim and Padad Shahr, p = 0.041). Target hazard quotient values were also all below 1.

It can be concluded that the fishes from Ahvaz city markets are comparatively clean and do not constitute a risk for human health.

Education is a human right and access to high quality education is key to sustainable socioeconomic development. Improving the quality of higher education institutes is essential for generating the productive human resources. Assessing the quality of higher education from the students’ perspective can be considered a crucial factor in the monitoring of service quality in universities. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality of educational services in a higher education institute, the Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS), in the west of Iran.

A multistage sampling method was used to select 346 students from the KUMS, who were enrolled in the second semester of the academic year 2015-2016. The SERVQUAL questionnaire was used to gather data on students’ perceptions and their expectations about the quality of educational services. The authors used a statistical significance level of 0.05 to examine the gap between the students’ expectations and their perceptions of service quality in five dimensions, namely tangibles, responsiveness, reliability, empathy and assurance.

The results showed that there was a negative service quality gap in all five dimensions. The overall mean score of students’ expectations and their perceptions was 3.19±0.44 and 2.4±0.45, respectively. The score gap between the overall mean score of perceptions and expectations of students was −0.79, which was statistically significant (p<0.0001). The highest and lowest quality gaps were related to the assurance (−0.84) and tangible (−0.70) dimensions, respectively.

The study indicated that the quality of educational services provided in the KUMS did not meet students’ expectations in five dimensions of service quality. Thus, it warrants further investigations to determine how to improve the quality of educational services in higher education institutes such as the KUMS.

This paper aims to study the application of high-tolerance and flexible indigenous bacteria and fungi, along with the co-metabolism in recycled paper and cardboard mill (RPCM) wastewater treatment (WWT).

The molecular characterization of isolated indigenous bacteria and fungi was performed by 16S rRNA and 18S rRNA gene sequencing, respectively. Glucose was used as a cometabolic substrate to enhance the bioremediation process.

The highest removal efficiency was achieved for both chemical oxygen demand (COD) and color [78% COD and 45% color removal by Pseudomonas aeruginosa RW-2 (MZ603673), as well as approximately 70% COD and 48% color removal by Geotrichum candidum RW-4 (ON024394)]. The corresponding percentages were higher in comparison with the efficiency obtained from the oxidation ditch unit in the full-scale RPCM WWT plant.

Indigenous P. aeruginosa RW-2 and G. candidum RW-4 demonstrated effective capability in RPCM WWT despite the highly toxic and low biodegradable nature, especially with the assistance of glucose.

Knowledge is a key driver for the competitive success of organizations, but about 90 percent of organizational knowledge is inside employees’ minds with personal essence; therefore, this paper provides valuable vision for managers by exploring knowledge acquisition (KA) techniques and personality type. The purpose of this paper is to examine KA techniques and explore the impact of personality type on the KA process in the aerospace industry.

This paper examines KA techniques through an empirical study involving 83 participants to take part in KA sessions. For exploring techniques, a questionnaire was used, and also the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was used to identify participants’ personality type. The impact of personality type on KA processes was determined by correlation analysis.

Analyses confirmed some association between the type of personality and KA process. In addition, the findings of exploring questionnaire items showed that participants gave the laddering technique the highest rating.

The paper may be of high value to researchers in the field of KA, especially in aerospace industries, because there is very little experimental investigation of KA, and it also provides valuable information and guidelines that hopefully will help researchers to select appropriate KA techniques.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between personality traits (introversion versus extroversion) and knowledge acquisition (KA) techniques.

The major methodology of the current study is survey. Results are based on 152 usable responses provided by experts in different industries including electronic, communication, information technology, computer and biology. The major analytical technique used is Pearson correlation analysis.

According to the results, there are significant relationships between personality traits (i.e. introversion versus extroversion) and KA techniques.

This study was conducted on data from 152 Iranian experts which limits the generalizability of the results. This limitation can be addressed by future studies conducting similar studies on cross-country samples. Further, due to the analytical technique adopted in this study, causality implications cannot be drawn from the results.

This study reveals linkages between personality traits (i.e. introversion versus extroversion) and KA techniques. Results shed light on the KA process for both scholars and practitioners involved in KA programs in the organizations.

There are many challenges in the development of a digital library (DL) and their complexity can be approached effectively with a maturity model. In a maturity model, the features of a phenomenon are divided into different levels and at each level, they are first improved before going on to the improvement or realization of the next level. The purpose of this study is to design a digital library maturity model (DLMM) in Iran.

The DLMM was designed using a qualitative approach, meta-synthesis and the Delphi technique. First, the maturity features of a DL were identified by assessing 68 sources of study concerning DLs and maturity models using meta-synthesis. The maturity features were then validated by experts using the three-round Delphi technique. Finally, the experts were asked to categorize these features into the five levels of the capability maturity model (CMM) as the base model.

By analyzing these sources, three categories, seven concepts and 35 codes for the maturity features of a DL were identified. The majority of previous studies focused on the use of hardware/software systems as the backup and empowerment of DLs and the concept of DL content. The maturity features were then validated by experts using the three-round Delphi technique. Like the base model, DLMM has five levels, and most features were categorized into the third and fourth levels by the experts. Features such as human resources, needs assessment of DL and readiness to create a DL were included in the second level.

This work adds the concept of the maturity model to the literature of DLs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between dietary total antioxidant capacity (DTAC) and the dietary inflammatory index (DII) with inflammatory status in children recently diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). As the relationship between diet quality scores and inflammation remains uncertain in this population, the authors carried out a hospital-based cross-sectional study.

The study used a cross-sectional design involving 54 children recently diagnosed with ALL. Dietary data was collected using a 147-item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire developed for the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study. Inflammatory status was evaluated using various indicators like C-reactive protein (CRP), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), Glasgow prognostic score (GPS) and Complete blood count-based inflammatory score.

The authors found no significant relationship between DII with inflammatory indices and length of hospitalization in patients. However, a significant inverse relationship was observed between the antioxidant indices ferric-reducing ability of plasma, total reactive antioxidant potential and Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity with the inflammatory index MLR, respectively (ß: −0.19, p = 0.001), (ß: −0.42, p = 0.02), (ß: −0.53, p = 0.005). Also, a significant inverse relationship between FRAP and CRP was observed in the crude model (ß: −0.13, p = 0.05). FRAP was also inversely correlated with GPS and PLR, respectively (ß: −0.08, p = 0.02), (ß: −0.26, p = 0.03). No additional significant links were discovered between food scores and the outcomes studied.

This study found no link between DII with inflammatory markers or hospitalization duration in children with ALL. However, the authors did observe a noteworthy inverse relationship between DTAC and certain inflammatory markers like MLR. To achieve more dependable findings, further research in this area is necessary.

Spurred by the high turnover in the pharmaceutical industry, locating pharmacies inside urban areas along with the high product perishability in this industry, the pharmaceutical supply chain management has recently gained increasing attention. Accordingly, this paper unveils an inventory-routing problem for designing a pharmaceutical supply chain with perishable products and time-dependent travel time in an uncertain environment.

In this study, mathematical programming is employed to formulate a multi-graph network affected by the traffic volume in order to adapt to real-world situations. Likewise, by transforming the travel speed function to the travel time function using a step-by-step algorithm, the first-in-first-out property is warranted. Moreover, the Box–Jenkins forecasting method is employed to diminish the demand uncertainty.

An appealing result is that the delivery horizon constraint in the under-study multi-graph network may eventuate in selecting a longer path. Our analysis also indicates that the customers located in the busy places in the city are not predominantly visited in the initial and last delivery horizon, which are the rush times. Moreover, it is concluded that integrating disruption management, routing planning and inventory management in the studied network leads to a reduction of costs in the long term.

Applying the time-dependent travel time with a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles on the multi-graph network, considering perishability in the products for reducing inventory costs, considering multiple trips of transfer fleet, considering disruption impacts on supply chain components and utilizing the Box–Jenkins method to reduce uncertainty are the contributions of the present study.

This study aims to investigate the most effective enablers and tools for inhabitants’ knowledge acquisition in public policymaking organizations.

Based on a literature review, the study summarized 51 individual, organizational, technological and inhabitant-related enablers of inhabitants’ knowledge acquisition, as well as 36 technological and social tools. The study assessed the effectiveness of these enablers and tools based on two rounds of a Delphi study targeting 31 policymakers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Kendall’s coefficient of concordance was assessed to determine consensus among participating policymakers.

The findings indicate that the most effective enablers were inhabitants’ willingness to get involved, information technology (IT) infrastructure, IT staff support and inhabitants’ trust in policymakers. Additionally, the study found that the most effective tools for inhabitants’ knowledge acquisition included meetings, interviews, social media and field visits.

Inhabitants’ knowledge acquisition is an important social and economic force that will drive change in any society by enabling the implementation of innovative ideas and practices. A review of the relevant research shows that despite the usability of inhabitants’ knowledge, the degree to which inhabitants’ knowledge acquisition is integrated into the public policymaking system remains unclear. This study of inhabitants’ knowledge acquisition from the policymaker perspective provides a better understanding of the inhabitants’ knowledge acquisition process in policymaking organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the application of C-shaped QFD 3D Matrix in comparing process characteristics (PC), performance aspects (PA) and customer requirements, simultaneously and to prioritize the first two sets, respectively.

A three dimensional matrix has been developed with three sets of PC, PA and customers’ requirements and C-shaped matrix has been applied for simultaneous comparison of the dimensions and prioritization of the subsets of PC and PA. The proposed approach has been examined in a post bank.

Findings confirm the possibility of simultaneous comparison and prioritization of the three sets of dimensions of this study in post bank services. In addition, “growth and learning” and “bilateral relationship with suppliers” had the first priorities among PA and PC, respectively.

While the proposed approach has many advantages, filling the matrixes is time-consuming. Since illustrating the 3D matrix was not possible, the matrix was separated into five two-dimensional matrixes.

Compared to the studied literature, the proposed approach is practically new in the post bank services.