Changes and Problems of Agricultural Development in Iran

There has been a big debate on the evolution of agricultural development (AD), the challenges and problems hindering AD in Iran since last decade. This study was implemented in the province of Esfahan and a number of 130 out of 212 agricultural experts from 13 different townships were selected as the target group. Totally 70 experts returned the completed questionnaires. The findings of the study revealed that most of the AD changes have been positive but in a very slow rate. Respondents unanimously claimed that the sustainability in agriculture and maintenance of agricultural lands are the most deteriorating issues during last ten years. With regard to AD problems, they stressed the lack of adequate fund allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture (MAJ) and lack of its power to control beneficiary dealers within the sector, unfair political influence, lack of international contacts and also untrustworthiness of agriculture for private investors as the most problematic obstacles for AD in Iran. They perceived that MAJ has not sufficiently addressed the problems so far, although, there are some promising movements. Experts believed that MAJ is not able to solve the majority of problems alone due to their extrinsic nature

Power Strip Packing of Malleable Demands in Smart Grid

We consider a problem of supplying electricity to a set of $\mathcal{N}$ customers in a smart-grid framework. Each customer requires a certain amount of electrical energy which has to be supplied during the time interval $[0,1]$. We assume that each demand has to be supplied without interruption, with possible duration between $\ell$ and $r$, which are given system parameters ($\ell\le r$). At each moment of time, the power of the grid is the sum of all the consumption rates for the demands being supplied at that moment. Our goal is to find an assignment that minimizes the {\it power peak} - maximal power over $[0,1]$ - while satisfying all the demands. To do this first we find the lower bound of optimal power peak. We show that the problem depends on whether or not the pair $\ell, r$ belongs to a "good" region $\mathcal{G}$. If it does - then an optimal assignment almost perfectly "fills" the rectangle $time \times power = [0,1] \times [0, A]$ with $A$ being the sum of all the energy demands - thus achieving an optimal power peak $A$. Conversely, if $\ell, r$ do not belong to $\mathcal{G}$, we identify the lower bound $\bar{A} >A$ on the optimal value of power peak and introduce a simple linear time algorithm that almost perfectly arranges all the demands in a rectangle $[0, A /\bar{A}] \times [0, \bar{A}]$ and show that it is asymptotically optimal

Towards a competency profile for the role of instruction of agricultural extension professionals in Asfahan

This thesis is aimed at developing a competency profile for instructors in the agricultural extension service in theprovinceofEsfahaninIran. These instructors are part-time subject matter specialists who cooperate with the Ministry of Agriculture and teach short-term extension courses in different disciplines to farmers. Previous research revealed that the target group of the research generally experience many problems in their role of instructor during extension courses for farmers. The PhD project was conducted to develop a competency profile for this role in the next three to five years. In doing that, a comprehensive review of the literature was carried out, the competency models presented by McLagan (1982) were selected and adjusted to the Iranian extension system, and were tested for the role of instruction. To increase the reliability of the model, different respondents were involved: participating and non-participating farmers in extension courses, agricultural experts, agricultural managers, and instructors.The research carried out in the project is presented in this book, which contains three main parts and nine chapters. The first chapter is the general introduction, which provides the literature review, problem statement, research design, definition of concepts, study area and the outline of the thesis. Part one of the thesis presents four farmers' studies, part two encompasses two agricultural experts' studies and part three includes the key study of the research and the synthesis. In the synthesis chapter the implications of all previous chapters about the competency profile of the target group are aggregated and the model is triangulated.The findings of this research show that the evolution of agricultural development and extension has not been convincing during the last decade and that farmers were confronted with many unexpected changes and problems in their work. The Ministry of Agriculture (MAJ) has supported farmers to a limited extent, and much more support is needed in the future. However, the governmental extension services are assumed as being the most important information source for farmers. Farmers were generally pleased with the services of the extension organization and with their courses, as well as with the instructors, but they expect revisions in evaluation methods, the use of instructional technologies, and the duration of the courses and follow up strategies delivered by the instructors. The most important motives of farmers for participation in the courses were performance improvement and personal development.Respondents of the key study (chapter eight) gave high scores to all components (future forces, ethical issues, outputs, standards and competencies) of the competency profile of the instructors. It was concluded that instructors should perform additional roles apart from instruction. New general and common competencies were inserted into the final version of the competency profile of the instructors. Ultimately, this research revealed that designing a common competency profile for instructors is possible but the profile should be differentiated based on the stratification of the farmer population by variables such as gender, age, level of education, and motives for course participation. Further research is proposed both for the role of instructors and other human resource professionals in the field of agricultural extension inIran. Also, repeating this study at national and international level, also in different sectors, could enhance professional development in various occupations and thereby socio-economic development in these sectors, and could further elaborate the instrumental use of the model