State, Dissidents, and Contention: Iran, 1979-2010

Why after almost a decade of silence and "successful" crackdowns of contention during the 1980s has Iran witnessed once again waves of increasing popular protest? What are the processes and mechanisms behind the routinization of collective actions in Iran since the early 1990s, which continue despite state repression? Why and under what circumstances does a strong authoritarian state that has previously marginalized its contenders tolerate some forms of contention despite the state's continued repressive capacity? And finally, to what extent are available social movement theories capable of explaining the Iranian case? In "State, Dissidents, and Contention: Iran, 1979-2010" I engage theories of social movements and contentious politics in order to examine the emergence, development, and likely outcomes of popular contention in contemporary Iran. My study is the first project of its kind to focus on elite factionalism and its impact on popular mobilization in contemporary Iran. Although other scholars have extensively written on elite factionalism in postrevolutionary Iran, they have not analyzed the implications of the inter-elite conflict for the emergence and development of social protests against the Islamic Republic. While this study primarily utilizes political process and resource mobilization models, it acknowledges the importance of economic, ideological, and breakdown approaches for the interpretation of the emergence and development of popular mobilization in contemporary Iran. Drawing on data gathered from census figures, public policies, state and oppositional newspapers, and interviews with dissidents and state officials, this study shows that collective actions against the Islamic Republic emerged gradually due to institutional changes, limited electorate competition, social and educational expansion, and, more importantly, the intellectual transformation of a significant segment of the elites and their action-intended discourse. I demonstrate that the political opportunity structure is not a unitary national opportunity but rather varies by social groups, demands, and contexts. I make this argument by exploring the political environment for collective mobilization in contemporary Iran in four key contexts: 1. the period of consolidation, war, and repression (1979-1988, the Khomeini era); 2. the period of postwar reconstruction and economic liberalization (1989-1997, the tenure of President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani); 3. the era of reform and political opening (1997-2005, the tenure of President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami); and 4. the period of mobilization in the context of increasingly violent repression (2005-present, the tenure of President Mahmood Ahmadinejad). By examining social protests within these different contexts, I conclude that regimes that use force to restrict political rights after a long and sustained period of opening risk eliciting resistance from dissidents who have already gained organizational resources to challenge the state's violent closing

Some Effects of Subsea Water Pipeline Construction on Sessile Benthic Community Structure of Redang Island, Malaysia

A pipeline system, constructed in 1997- 1998, to provide water to Redang Island, traverses an area covered with coral reefs. Biological studies were conducted before and following the construction to monitor changes in habitat and biota at selected sites. Pre-construction studies consisted of conducting inventories of predominant marine life, and evaluating sites for their sensitivity to construction, whilst, post-construction studies involved assessment of d isturbed areas and monitoring the pattern of re-colonization by marine life. Marine environmental impact associated with the pipeline-crossing was monitored in the vicinity of the Island for one year. Evidence of the pipeline impact was assessed mainly by values concerning the abundance of zoobenthic community (including corals) and species diversity indices. Annelids and Arthropods were the most dominant phyla numerically during both study periods, being greater in pre-construction period. Student t-test and One-way ANOVA analyses revealed that there was no significant differences between total abundance of sessile macroinvertebrates during pre and post-construction periods. Student t-test revealed a significant difference between the means of live coral coverage during pre and post-construction periods. There was no apparent change in total number of macro-invertebrates as a result of pipe line construct ion. Results indicated that impacts arising from marine-crossing were short-term and non-residual

DESIGN OF NOVEL MULTIPLEXER CIRCUITS IN QCA NANOCOMPUTING

Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) technology is a promising alternative nano-scale technology for CMOS technology. In digital circuits, a multiplexer is one of the most important components. In this study, an efficient and single layer 2 to 1 QCA multiplexer circuit is proposed using majority gate and inverter gate. In addition, efficient 4 to 1 and 8 to 1 QCA multiplexer circuits are implemented using this 2 to 1 multiplexer circuit. The developed multiplexer circuits are implemented in QCADesigner tool. According to the results, the developed 2 to 1, 4 to 1, and 8 to 1 multiplexer circuits utilize 16 (0.01μm2), 96 (0.11μm2), and 286 (0.43μm2) QCA cell (area). The results demonstrate that the proposed 8 to 1 multiplexer circuit reduces the cost by about 25%-99% compared to the existing multiplexer circuits

Heavy metals in neuston from the straits of Malacca.

Heavy metals cadmium, lead, copper and zinc in neuston were analyzed from samples collected with a modified neuston net (310 μm mesh size) during an oceanographic cruise from July 29 to August 8, 2000 in the Straits of Malacca. The period of sampling coincided with South-West (SW) monsoon. The heavy metal concentrations in neuston were relatively low: ranging from 1.19-1013.70 μg g-1 wet weight for copper, 16.54-235.78 μg g-1 wet weight for zinc, 3.92-36.08 μg g-1 wet weight for lead and from 0.32-4.09 μg g-1 wet weight for cadmium. The heavy metal concentrations in neuston in this study were within the ranges published elsewhere, except for cadmium, there were significant differences (p <0.05) in concentrations of Cu, Pb and Zn between northern, central and southern parts of the Straits. However, concentrations of Cu and Zn were significantly (p 0.05). The presence of two groups of stations with high and low heavy metal concentration as revealed by multivariate analyses corresponded mostly to near-coastal and neritic waters, respectively

NOVEL SINGLE LAYER FAULT TOLERANCE RCA CONSTRUCTION FOR QCA TECHNOLOGY

Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) technology has become a promising and accessible candidate that can be used for digital circuits implementation at Nanoscale, but the circuit design in the QCA technology has been limited due to fabrication high-defect rate. So, this issue is an interesting research topic in the QCA circuits design. In this study, a novel 3-input Fault Tolerance (FT) Majority Gate (MG) is developed. Accordingly, an efficient 1-bit QCA full adder is developed using the developed 3-input MG. Then, a new 4-bit FT QCA Ripple Carry Adder (RCA) is developed based on the proposed 1-bit FT QCA FA. The developed circuits are implemented in the QCADesigner tool version 2.0.3. The results indicate that the developed QCA circuits provide advantages compared to other QCA circuits in terms of double and single cell missing defect, area and delay time

Sea star (Echinodermata) species diversity and distribution in the south-east of Iran (Gulf of Oman)

Echinoderms are one of the oldest and most important groups of marine organisms which play an important role in the marine ecology especially in the coral reefs. During November 2012 to August 2013, six stations were selected in the intertidal zone at the north of Gulf of Oman according to sea bottom. At each station, the Sea star species of the selected area were counted in 10 m2 with 10 replications. This study was made in three seasons namely autumn, winter and summer. According to the result, cluster analyses showed the site similarity in species abundance and diversity with the same substrata. Maximum and minimum sea star diversity was shown in winter and summer, respectively

Analysis of Factors Effective on Loyalty of Customers of Websites

Abstract: Today, the issue of keeping and strengthening customer loyalty is considered as a strategic challenge for the companies which are concerned how to retain and develop their competitive position in the market. They bear high costs to understand this concept and to achieve the practical approaches to strengthen it; because as the competition is intensified and the quantitative and qualitative level of the services in the selection area of the customers, it is considered as a vital task to provide the services which would be able to attract their attention and change them into the permanent customers of the services provided by the organization. The present investigation examines the quality system, information quality, interface design quality and their effects on the satisfaction and trust of the customers of websites as well as the effects of such trust and satisfaction on loyalty of customers of websites. Statistical population of this research includes the customers of Center Market website among which a sample of 320 people was selected. The data were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS statistical software and the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used as the statistical method. The results so achieved show that system quality and interface design quality affect significantly on the satisfaction and trust of the customers. Furthermore, the trust and satisfaction are considerably effective on the customer loyalty

Coral reefs and community around Larak island (Persian Gulf)

Field surveys pertaining to coral reef studies were performed from November 2010 to August 2011 around Larak Island in the Persian Gulf. The Line Intercept Transect (LIT) method was applied to record biotic and abiotic components of the coral reefs at two sites around Larak Island: North East (NE) and South West (SW) with two stations per site. Mean "Live Coral Coverage" (LCC) and “Dead Coral Coverage” (DCC) at SW 21.74% ± 1.92%, 4.58% ± 0.65%and NE sites were 5.69% ± 0.54%, 35.64% ± 3.28% respectively. Dead Coral Coverage was more prevalent in the NE than in SW. Based on Mann-Whitney U-test LCC and DCC showed significant difference (p< 0.05) among these two sites, (p< 0.05); The Kruskal-Wallis test also showed significant difference (p< 0.05) among four stations within two sites. This study indicated that coral communities of the NE site have been more destroyed by human impacts such as municipal run-off, breakwater construction, trap fishing, over-fishing and several other human activities

Abundance and composition of zooplankton in the straits of Malacca

The zooplankton composition and distribution were studied during four oceanographic cruises in the Straits of Malacca between November 1998 and August 2000 with 140 μm-mesh and 45-cm diameter NORPAC net. Zooplankton samples were analyzed for the faunal composition and abundance. Zooplankton abundance peaked during pre-southwest monsoon (mean of 12, 918 ± 5, 635 ind. m3). Copepods were the most important constituents of the zooplankton in all areas. Copepods (including copepodites) accounted for 71.3%, 71.2%, 70.9% and 57.9% of the total zooplankton populations during consecutive cruises I, II, III and IV, respectively. Molluscs (6.3% to 12.4%) and crustacean's nauplii (4.4% to 6.0%) comprised the important groups of non-copepod zooplankton. Spatio-temporal variation in zooplankton abundance was not statistically significant. Zooplankton was more abundant in the near-coastal areas than in offshore areas, but the difference was not significant