محمدرضا قانع

Analyzing the subject structure of research in this field can provide valuable information about the current state of the field, including its issues and needs, strengths, gaps, and shortcomings. The present study aims to analyze the global research topics in information science and library science, while also reviewing research topics from previous years and identifying thematic gaps. This analysis will provide a foundation for planning and policy research in this field.

The present study utilized an automated classification technique. Data analysis was performed on 85,403 articles indexed on the Web of Science website between 1945 and 2019 in the field of library and information science. The source and tool used for extracting research data was Web of Science. After preparing and pre-processing the data and formulating the classification plan for articles across 31 thematic categories, the logistic regression algorithm has been employed for the automatic classification of articles. This algorithm assigns articles to their respective thematic categories using the Cosine similarity criterion. The various stages of the research were performed using the Python 3.7 programming language and the Pandas, Numpy, NLTK, and Plotly software packages.

Most of the global research in this field is dedicated to information technology, while the field of organizational management has the least amount of research. The growth trend of research in many thematic areas is increasing. However, there is further growth in areas such as web studies, information technology, information behavior, user studies, information retrieval, and search engines. After the 1990s, popular terms such as social media, big data, virtual library, IoT (Internet of Things), machine learning, deep learning, data mining, open data, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, cloud computing, virtual reality, augmented reality, and machine translation have emerged in research in this field. It appears that the utilization of keywords pertaining to traditional subjects in the field has declined, while the usage of concepts encompassing new topics related to technology and the web has increased. The rapid growth of fields such as web development, technology, artificial intelligence, and data mining has led to the evolution of research topics and increased connections with computer science and information technology, particularly in recent years. The changes in the subjects of this field can be attributed to the development of the web and advancements in technology. Additionally, the concepts and research topics in this field have had an impact on globalization, communication progress, and overall development in various economic, social, and cultural dimensions. 

The conclusion of the study highlights the thematic trends in library and information science research over different time periods. It also identifies the weaknesses in the scientific output of this field, while outlining the evolutionary process and the path of progress and development in the field of science. Due to the fact that scientific outputs are derived from the issues, needs, and priorities of a society at any given time, studying them can help clarify the most important issues and research needs in the field of library and information science. This, in turn, can provide a foundation for identifying future research needs and subjects in the field. In other words, having a clear understanding of the subject areas of library and information science will help researchers in this field identify the most important issues and needs. This, in turn, will enable them to take appropriate actions when selecting topics for future research. By conducting needs-based research, we can lay the groundwork for policy development and research planning in this field. This approach will also help address potential challenges and problems that may arise. This is despite the fact that if the needs and issues are ignored, research resources and credits will be spent on topics that do not have the necessary priority and importance. It cannot be expected that the findings from these topics will solve the problems and pave the way for the advancement of this field.

One of the important aspects of scientific research that can provide the basis for scientific growth and development is their thematic content. Considering the importance of paying attention to the experiences of advanced countries in problem-finding and selecting research subjects, the present research aims to compare and analyze the subject trends of library and information science research at the national and international level.

A review of various studies shows that few studies have been conducted with the approach of comparing the subject trends of library and information science researches at the national level with the researches conducted in advanced countries. China (Rochester & Vakkari, 1998) and India (Dora & Kumar, 2019) were among the countries that compared national and international researches. The results showed that the research topics of this field in more advanced countries were strongly influenced by the educational, research and social structure of those countries and were very different from the research topics conducted in India. The only comparative study conducted in Iran in the field of librarianship and information science was related to (2000) Usefi, which examined the studies of more than 25 years during a limited period (two years).

The present study is of applied type and has been done with a comparative approach between the fields of national and international research. The study population includes 84875 articles indexed in Clarity Analytics database during the years 1945-2019 and 4664 Iranian articles indexed in the ISC database during the years 1972-2019 in the library and information science. The source and tool for extracting research data to review international research topics was the Clarivate Analytics database and the ISC database to review Iranian research topics. In this study, in order to develop a thematic classification plan of articles, the method of reviewing resources and to assign articles to each of the thematic categories, the method of Automatic classification, which is one of the applications of textual analysis, was used. Data analysis was performed by calculating the frequency percentage and Chi-square test and using SPSS 22 software.

The findings showed that there is a significant difference between the number of research areas of library and information science at the national and international level. Fields such as information technology, web studies, information economy, artificial intelligence, data mining, information systems, search engines, and databases were more trending among international research, and fields such as theoretical foundations, fields related to libraries and their functions, research, knowledge management, information retrieval and scientometrics were more common among Iranian researches.

During recent decades, the world has been moving towards digital and virtual space. In this space, developments such as the increase in the volume of information and the emergence of big data on the one hand and the development of information and communication technologies and artificial intelligence tools and big data processing on the other hand, have affected the level of expectations of the people of the society from the services of libraries and the organization and accessibility of information. Has set. For this reason, librarians, information specialists and managers of libraries and information centers have taken advantage of the achievements of fields related to computer science, information technology and artificial intelligence in order to face new developments and manage large amounts of data in order to transform the traditional functions of libraries. In addition, researchers in the field of information science and epistemology, especially at the international level, are more and more interested in studying and researching in the field of data science and acquiring the most up-to-date scientific achievements and knowing the latest related tools and technologies in order to play their effective role in this space. are competitive.

The results of the current research show that the field of library and information science at the international level has established a stronger relationship with other fields, especially artificial intelligence, computer science, information and communication technology. Also, at the global level, digitization processes and information growth are faster and smart technologies and tools have made more progress than third world countries and especially Iran. In other words, advanced countries due to having more economic and political power, more advanced social structure, being a leader in information and communication technology developments, more financial and spiritual support from the governments and officials of these countries for researchers and providing a suitable platform for scientific studies, access Faster access to information sources, and the appropriateness of educational and research programs with the needs and expectations of society members, have a more targeted planning to identify the problem and choose a topic in line with the real problems and needs and in sync with the developments of the day, to carry out their research. Therefore, at the international level, applied topics based on web and internet developments and information and communication technologies should face more trends and a faster growth trend than Iranian research topics.

Considering the role of studying the thematic trend of knowledge and information science research in showing the weaknesses, shortcomings and the path of progress and development of that field, the present study intends to study the topics of articles conducted by Iranian researchers at the national and international levels in this field.

The present study is applied and has been done with the approach of text mining and automated classification analysis. The study population includes articles extracted from the website of Iranian journals indexed in the ISC database during 1977-2019, and the articles done by Iranian researchers that have been indexed in the Web of Science website from 2019-1945. All preprocessing and classification processes are implemented in the Python programming language.

In order to categorize the studies of knowledge and information science, by examining the study backgrounds and combining the existing classifications and consulting experts in this field, a plan consisting of 31 subject areas was prepared and based on the analysis. The findings showed that most of the researches in this field are focused on libraries and information centers and archives; respectively; Research, study and publication; Scientometrics and informatics; and Internet and web studies. In contrast, areas of artificial intelligence; Semantic and ontological web; Information and knowledge-based society; and information systems have the least amount of research. An examination of the concepts and vocabulary used in the studies of this field showed that the word "library" in Iranian articles is the most frequent concept among other concepts in this period. Other commonly used concepts in this course include: Information, University, Science, Study, Knowledge, Management, Evaluation, Web, Library, Technology, Services, and Librarians. Among co-occurrence terms, the terms university library, public library, knowledge management, information science, information retrieval behavior, information technology, medical sciences, national library, digital library, central library, and information retrieval were among the most commonly used terms. Common use of terms such as knowledge, management, technology, knowledge management and information technology, digital, digital library, social network, information literacy, cloud computing and e-government shows the increasing attention of Iranian researchers to interdisciplinary and technology-based topics. Concepts and topics of Iranian research, especially in recent years, have undergone changes in various economic, social and cultural dimensions under the influence of web development and the development of semantic technologies, smart tools, globalization and advances in communication, and comprehensive development.

The results of the present study can help in planning and decision-making regarding recognizing educational and research needs, formulating curricula, and guiding future scientific outputs towards priorities and optimal allocation of resources to them. These results can also guide researchers in deciding to select future research topics in knowledge and information science.

The roots of most shortcomings and problems related to problem-finding, topic selection, and part of the damage of studies in knowledge and information science can be caused by the uncertainty of the basic issues and challenges of this field, and the lack of attention to current and future study needs and fields. This makes obvious the necessity of studying and researching issues and future research needs in this field. In this regard, the current research aims to identify the issues and challenges ahead and future study areas in the field of knowledge and information science from experts' viewpoints.

The approach of the current research is qualitative in terms of the type of data. An electronic interview based on an open-response questionnaire was used to collect data. The studied population included Ph.D. students and graduates, and faculty members of public and private universities affiliated with research institutes in this field in Iran. In order to determine the sample size, the purposeful sampling method was used. The criteria for selecting the samples were willingness to participate in research and having at least 5 years of service experience in educational and research centers related to the field of knowledge and information science. According to the final purpose regarding the study of issues and leading subject areas, it was checked that the people participating in this research have, as much as possible, the research backgrounds related to the study of issues, research areas of knowledge and information science, needs, and problems. At the end of the questionnaire, by using the snowball sampling method, the aforementioned people were requested to introduce other people with experiences and views on the issues, challenges, and subjects of the field, to participate in the study. Until theoretical saturation and reaching repetitive information, sampling was continued. Finally, the opinions of 22 experts in knowledge and information science were used. The interpretive analysis method was used to analyze qualitative data and identify components. Data management and coding were done using MaxQda 2020 software. To ensure the reliability of the results, the retest reliability method (coding stability index) was used, and its value was 83%.

The analysis of transcripts of interviews led to the identification of 54 problems in this field. According to these findings, many of the challenges identified in the current research are not only specific to knowledge and information science, and some of them are also relevant in other fields, especially humanities and social sciences.The origin of some of these problems goes back to environmental conditions including social, cultural, economic, technological, etc. factors, and in general, to the policies and conditions governing the society, and some others are affected by the conditions governing the field itself. Among the identified issues and challenges, experts in knowledge and information science put special emphasis on issues related to education and the higher education system. Most of the problems raised by them were related to the state of the scientific outputs of this field. In addition, considering the rapid process of changes today and their continuation in the future, one of the most important concerns of specialists in this field is the ability to accompany and adapt to the process of comprehensive changes and manage them in order to achieve their goals and missions. The subject areas of the future were categorized by the specialists of this field in 10 main areas including education, research and science production, user studies, information organization, information retrieval, virtual libraries, knowledge management, information services, librarians and information specialists, and theoretical and philosophical foundations. According to the results regarding future issues and subject areas in the field of knowledge and information science, it can be acknowledged that, in general, the focus of future studies will be on 6 main axes: Issues related to users and their interaction with information and information systems; Topics related to information science and content management in cyberspace, including big data organization and digital content recovery; Training graduates and information specialists for effective employment in the changing work environments of the future and preparation for entrepreneurship and self-employment; Evaluation and development of science and research; Developing the relationship between information science and epistemology with other related fields including computer science, information technology, artificial intelligence, management; Futuristic studies and the use of their achievements in order to improve and keep pace with future developments; Digitization and virtualization of libraries and information centers, services and activities related to knowledge and information science.

On the one hand, these results can help policymakers and scientific, educational, and research planners in allocating financial resources to basic issues and topics, and on the other hand, they can be a guide for researchers in problem-finding and choosing practical and problem-oriented topics. These results can also provide a basis for the supervisors of this field to pay attention to the upcoming issues and challenges and plan to smooth them out.

Considering that the volume of publications is growing at an increasing speed, forecasting the research trend and identifying emerging issues is of particular importance. It should be noted that choosing the right method for accurately predicting the research trend is very important, which has been the focus of many researchers in recent years. In this regard, the present research aims to present the findings of research conducted in Iran and the world regarding the most important approaches and proposed methods for predicting the trend of scientific outputs in the future.

The present study was conducted using the scoping review method. The implementation of the current research includes 5 stages: 1) Identifying research objectives, 2) Identifying related research, 3) Selecting research, 4) Data extraction, and 5) Summarizing, discussing, and reporting the results. To identify relevant research, international databases in English (ScienceDirect, Emerald, Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest) and Iranian databases in Persian (Magiran, Noormags, Civilica, SID, and Irandoc) were searched without considering the time limit. In this research, the PRISMA diagram was used for the sampling and data selection process, and the JBI evaluation tool was used to check the quality of selected sources. Finally, 117 effects were analyzed.

An overview of the studies carried out in forecasting research trends shows that these studies have attracted the most attention of researchers in the world and in Iran during the last two decades (especially from 2012 onwards), and the increasing trend in conducting these researches is evident. The most important studies conducted concerning the future of studies were the studies that identified trends and emerging research topics to determine the future direction of studies. In different periods, various approaches have been used to determine emerging issues and predict future research trends, which can be divided into 5 main categories: scientometric, quantitative and statistical, qualitative, mixed method, text mining, and machine learning. A review of studies showed that the most common approach used to identify emerging topics and predict future research trends was the scientometric approach. However, in recent years, due to the limitations of quantitative analysis and scientometric methods to determine the direction of future research, and with the increase in the volume of scientific production and the problems resulting from the analysis of large volumes of data, advances in computer technology and word processing tools. Text mining and machine learning approaches have been used to identify emerging areas and predict future research trends due to their high power in big data analysis along with traditional scientometric methods. The most important disciplines that have paid attention to the problem of predicting the trend of scientific outputs are related to sciences and engineering. It seems that paying attention to this issue in the mentioned fields can be because the speed of developments in these fields is higher and as a result of the necessity of conducting studies to predict the future developments of studies to synchronize and deal with them correctly before other fields and more has been The most important sources to be analyzed to achieve the future path of researches are the articles published in journals. The reason for the focus of these studies on journal articles can be that in any scientific field, articles are usually the result of research projects, theses, and other research experiences, which due to the limited access to these sources, can allow researchers to quickly access the results of these studies. and provide more convenience. On the other hand, scientific publications publish the latest scientific achievements and research findings in the shortest time, and this causes researchers and those engaged in scientific activities to be aware of the latest and most reliable scientific and research achievements. Therefore, to study the future trend of scientific outputs, articles have been considered more than other sources.

Different models and approaches have been proposed by researchers to follow the evolution of scientific products in the future. But it seems that a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches is needed to make accurate and reliable predictions and overcome the limitations of each of these methods. Be used simultaneously. In addition, utilizing expert opinions can be considered as a complement to scientometric analysis to predict the future. Having a future research approach in scientific policy-making and research management can play an effective role in charting the prospects of scientific development and provide the possibility of policy-making and planning for the future for researchers and stakeholders in various fields.

A book review is significant because besides being used by librarians in libraries and information centers to select books. It also helps readers and researchers inform about new books that its least advantage is saving time and careful selection. The effectiveness of new knowledge requires an application— generating knowledge alone and without using previous knowledge cannot achieve its objective, which is to increase awareness. The book review is a way to make the works known and provide proper awareness for society.Regarding the importance of book reviews and the applications of scientometrics in identifying the subject of research and considering that the initial studies of researchers show that there are few studies on analyzing book reviews on the WoS at the global level and specifically in Iran, this research was done to review and analyze “book reviews” indexed in the WoS databases, focusing on the activities of Iranian researchers, and through a comparative study of the situation in Iran with other countries in the world. 

The research adopted a descriptive-analytical survey method and a scientometrics approach. The population consists of all book reviews in 10 years (2010-2019) indexed in the Web of Science databases. To limit publications to book reviews, the book review option was selected. Based on this, 766,100 records were retrieved, which formed the current research population. To analyze the research data, Excel and VOSViewer were employed to draw the map to achieve coherent and clear networks.

The research showed that in the ten years from 2010 to 2019, book reviews covered approximately 3% of the total scientific production in the world and about 0.1% of Iranian documents. The results on Iran’s position in book review demonstrated the rank 47th in the world: in Iran, the book reviews growth rate is 0.07. The study of book reviews by subject in the world based on the 22 subjects of the ESI database showed that the interdisciplinary field is in the first rank, the field of psychiatry and psychology is in the second rank, and the social/general sciences are ranked the third. The findings showed that management, libraries, information retrieval, and librarians, which are part of the interdisciplinary fields, are hot and widely used topics. But in Iran, topics of gender, identity, evolution, capitalism, and ethics are the hot topics of book reviews. In the international arena and management, libraries, information retrieval, and librarians are the hot topics of a book review. This shows that the more specific issues of book review in the world and Iran have different directions and the trend in Iran is not in line with the global trend.

Book review publications have a lower growth rate than entire publications. Based on the subject map, the book review topics are different in the world and Iran. The collaborative coefficient of Iranian authors shows that co-authorship in book reviews is not favorable. According to the pattern of co-authorship of book reviews by Iranian researchers, the coefficient of participation of authors in these articles is 0.092, which shows that a person individually has mostly written book reviews in Iran and there is less the researchers’ willingness to participate.

The continuation of comprehensive developments in the future and their impact on various scientific fields, reveals the need for systematic studies on future knowledge. One of the most important aspects of the field of knowledge and information science from future developments that clarifies the need for future research in this field is the study of research topics. In this regard, the present study seeks to forecast the thematic trend of future research in this field in Iran by 1409. This research is of applied type and has been done with text analysis and deep learning approach. After pre-processing and thematic classification of research, deep neural network algorithms have been used to model past research and Forecast future topics. The study population includes articles extracted from the website of Iranian publications indexed in the ISC database during the years 1972-2019 and articles conducted in Iran that have been indexed in the Web of Science website from 1945-2019. All research processes are implemented in the Python programming language. The research findings showed that in the future, the highest number of researches will be in the fields of Internet and web studies, respectively; knowledge management; Information and Communications Technology; And scientometrics and informatics will be allocated. In addition, in the next decade, the growth trend of research in the field of Internet and web studies; Scientific and information communications; Librarians and information specialists; Data mining and knowledge discovery; Artificial intelligence and future studies will be faster. Areas such as organizational management, theoretical foundations, information resource management, and information processing and management will also have fewer fans among future researchers, and in addition, in the future, the axes of organizational management; Libraries and information centers and archives; Information resource management; Information and digital literacy; And the organization of information and knowledge will experience a slower growth process. The results show that the issues that have been raised in this field in the past years, despite the changes they have had, will continue to live in the same way in the future and only the context, format, methodology and method of their implementation will change. In other words, due to the transfer of traditional functions of this field to the digital and virtual world and increasing the role of information technologies, communication tools, Internet and web development, semantic tools and intelligent technologies in providing services and different dimensions of this field, future research topics They will be affected by these developments and will move towards web-based topics based on new technologies.

The field of Knowledge and Information science needs systematic studies about the future in order to adapt and keep pace with the current developments and to effectively deal with them and maintain their position and survival in the current competitive conditions. In this regard, the present study intends to guide future researchers to develop research in this field by reviewing studies related to the future of information science and science in Iran and the world.

The present study was conducted using the systematic review method. In the present study, in order to ensure the systematic review process, the guide provided by Okoli & Schabram (2010) has been used. For this purpose, related researches were searched in international and domestic databases without considering the time limit. In total, 114 researches were analyzed.

A review of studies showed that 14 dissertations, 25 conference articles, 65 journal articles and 10 website notes addressed the issue of the future of information science and epistemology. These researches have studied the future of this field in four axes: 1. Libraries and information centers in the future; 2. Librarians and information science professionals in the future; 3. The future of education in information science and science; And 4. The future of research in this field. A significant part of this research has been done with the aim of studying the goals, functions, features, services and resources of libraries in the future.

Libraries and information centers will continue to function as an important social institution in the future, but in order to be able to compete with competitors such as the Internet, super search engines, social networks, databases, virtual reality, augmented and hybrid technologies, To maintain and improve their position of audio-visual media and other new tools, it is necessary to change their services in accordance with the needs of the day and new technologies. In the future, the development of media and information carriers will not replace the role of librarians and information science professionals, but the importance of their position will be felt. In fact, among the various technologies and media, only librarians have the ability to overcome the challenges ahead such as the increasing volume of information, the growth of Internet resources, greater diversity of user needs, facing the problems of organizing information resources in cyberspace and optimal retrieval. Information from the masses of information is inappropriate. Given the current and future developments, the need for change in the situation of education and research in this field is felt more.

The present study seeks to identify and analyze the most important events and possible events affecting the thematic process of future research in the field of information science.

The present study was conducted using resource review and Delphi methods. The research community is professors of knowledge and information science at the international and Iranian levels with study backgrounds in the field of the future of this field.

The research findings showed that 78 future events will affect the thematic process of knowledge and information science research. These events come in 6 general dimensions including teaching and learning events; Scientific and research; Innovative and technological; Social and cultural; Political and legal; And economic and employment were categorized. Among the future events, from the experts' point of view, innovative and technological events will have the greatest impact on changing the course of future research topics.

Information and communication technology is a dynamic field that has rapidly expanded its influence in most scientific fields, including knowledge and information science. It is obvious that developments due to information and communication technologies will play an important role in the content of future research in this field.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of organizational citizenship behavior on user satisfaction with the Mediating Role of leader- member exchange and perceived supervisor support.

The research method is descriptive correlational study. Data collection tools were 4 organizational citizenship behavior questionnaires (24 items), member exchange (7 items), perceived supervisor support (16 items), and user satisfaction questionnaire (20 items). The research population included librarians at Regional Information and Science Information Center (120) and users (100) who were randomly selected at one month's return. The Data analysis methods were regression analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling.

The results showed that conscientiousness variables (β = 0.331) and sportsmanship (β = 0.200) had the most direct effect on users’ satisfaction against civic virtue (β = 0.215), courtesy (β = 0.68), and altruism (β = 154). The results also showed that these variables have an indirect effect on users' satisfaction.

Findings of the research proved that organizational citizenship behavior affects users’ satisfaction by considering the mediator role of leader- member exchange and supervised perceived support among librarians and users of the regional center for information science and technology.

This study aims to investigate the interdisciplinary relationships of biomedical engineering with other scientific domains in WoS during the period 1997 to 2017.

The method of the present study is descriptive survey-analytical with a quantitative and scientometric approach. The study population consisted of 9100 articles related to biomedical engineering indexed in the WOS for 21 years. 955 articles were selected through stratified random sampling.

Scientific production in the field of biomedical engineering from 1997 to 2017 has a growing trend. The tendency to co-authorship with a collaboration coefficient of 0.77 in this field is high. Data visualization showed that "biomedical engineering", "materials science - multidisciplinary", "polymer science", "electrical and electronic engineering" and "tissue and cellular engineering" are the most frequent and effective fields.

Conclustion: 

The process of research and scientific and hot topics in this field and common fields and their impact has led to the emergence of new fields of study in this profession. Since the group collaboration rate of researchers in this field is at a high level, researchers can contribute to the advancement and development of biomedical engineering through wider communication with each other.

Different studies in semi-arid regions showed that application of phosphorus fertilizers under drought stress conditions increased the crop yield. Most agricultural soils contain larger amount of fixed form of Phosphorus (P) than available P, a considerable part of which has accumulated as a consequence of regular applications of P fertilizers. Certain microorganisms such as phosphate solubilizing bacteria fungi, actinomycetes mostly those associated with the plant rhizosphere are known to convert insoluble inorganic phosphorus into soluble form that could be utilized by the plants. Among them, some phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) are being used as phosphatic biofertilizers for crop production. Phosphate solubilizing bacteria can solubilize fixed form of P to available form by the secretion of various kinds of organic acids, phosphatase enzyme, growth hormones etc. and increase availability of P to the plants. In this point of view, phosphatic biofertilizer may be used as an alternate option of chemical P fertilizer for lentil cultivation. Therefore, the present study was under taken to evaluate the effects of biofertilizer, chemical phosphorus and integrated application of fertilizers on yield and physiologic characteristics of lentil under drought and normal condition in karaj climate. To evaluate the effect of drought stress on seed yield and physiological traits of lentil cultivar (Ziba) with chemical and bio phosphorus fertilizer, an experiment was conducted in split plot based on randomized complete blocks design CRBD design with four replications in research farm of University of Tehran (Karaj-Iran) during 2014-15. The main factor included three irrigation levels (irrigation after 70, 90 and 130 mm evaporation from open pan class A) and sub treatment were the kind of phosphorus fertilizers (100% super phosphate triple (P); bio-fertilizer; 50% P + bio-fertilizer; no p fertilizer and bio-fertilizer as a check) The bio-fertilizer contained co-inoculation of phosphobacterin (pseudomonas strains 93 & 187) and azotobactor. The characteristics recorded were no. of pods per plant, seed yield, seed protein content (%), relative water content (RWC), proline content and total leaf chlorophyll.
For statistical analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Duncan’s multiple range test (DMRT) were performed using SAS ver. 9.2 software. Interaction effect of irrigation and type of fertilizer had significant effect on pod number per plant, protein percentage, relative water content, free proline and chlorophyll content. The results indicated that normal irrigation (irrigation after 70 mm evaporation from open pan class A) × integrated phosphorus fertilizer (50% P + inoculation with bio-fertilizer) gave the highest seed yield. Similarly, P and bio-fertilizers application under severe drought stress condition produced higher seed yield compared to other treatments. This can be explained that PB inoculation enhanced the solubilization of phosphates in rhizosphere soil of lentil which stimulated the native Rhizobium and attributed to increase the nodule number and weight ultimately that showed positive effects on other growth and yield attributes of lentil.
However, for the RWC under normal irrigation × bio-fertilizer; for the total leaf chlorophyll under normal irrigation × 100% super phosphate triple; and for the proline content under severe drought stress × 100% super phosphate triple gave the highest values. With drought stress conditions, the leaf RWC and Proline contents reduced, which represented a relationship between these physiological traits and lentil seed yield. In general, from the view of reducing chemical fertilizer uses to manner the environment-friendly and cost-saving cultivation, application of 50% P + seed inoculation with bio-fertilizer based on the result of this study is recommended.

This study aims to investigate Iran scientific production Pre-revolutionary by 2016 with the emphasis on the conferences proceedings, highly cited and hot papers, and open access papers, in the light of the Law of Economic, Social, and Cultural Development Plan of Iran. Descriptive – analytical method used. To achieve research objectives data extracted from Clarivate Analytics (Thomson Reuters) using search strategy CU=IRAN. Analysis is based on conferences proceedings, highly cited and hot papers, and open access papers indexed in Web of Science during 1931- 2016. The findings showed that the conferences papers had a significant growth over time, and in general, before the Islamic Revolution, no conferences papers from Iran were registered in this database, and the growth of these articles was after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, so that from one conference paper in 1989 to 3529 articles in 2015 (and 502 papers for first seven months in 2016). Also, the status of highly cited and hot papers indicates that in general, these papers have been compiled from 1134 highly cited papers since 2006 and 45 are hot papers that have been registered in this database. On the other hand, the status of open access articles suggests that the researchers are more likely to welcome these articles. However, the significant growth of these articles dates back to the fourth decade, with 25813 open access papers, most of which are published in 2015 with 4502 papers. The findings showed that the annual compound growth of conferences papers over the second period of the second development plan was 47.12%, which shows a decrease in the third plan (19.64%) with a negative growth of 8.38%. In the fourth plan, the growth rate of the articles of the conferences is 35.37% and represents 6.6% growth more than third plan. Between the fifth and fourth plans, we experience 18.82% of downtrend. There is no negative growth in the highly cited and hot papers between the second and the fifth plans, but the growth of these papers is not impressive. During the first to fifth plans, the development of open access articles has been significant, but the growth rate of a five-year plan is not prominent to another plan. In this regard, the findings showed that in the fifth development plan, we observed a decrease of 6.59% compared to the fourth plan. Although Iran has achieved a high status in terms of scientific quantity, it is necessary to pay more attention to applied quality research, in accordance with the Law of the Economic, Social, and Cultural Development Plan of Iran, and the responsible bodies and planners must prioritize this issue. With the efforts of the Iranian scholars and the necessary support in this regard, the influential presence of science and technology in the welfare of society is observed.

Medicinal plants are one of the main natural resources of Iran from ancient times. Perilla is an annual plant of the mint family Lamiaceae, native to east Asia and widely cultivated in India, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South and North Korea. Since, there was no study not only on adoptability of Perilla in Iran climate conditions but also on different fertilizer systems, this experiment was conducted in two experimental site (Mashhad Arde hal and Sen sen of Kashan). Experiment was conducted as split plot factorial based on a randomized complete block design with three replications at two experimental site in 2014. The main factor three chemical fertilizer levels (control, 50, 100, 200 kg/ha) and sub plots were different kinds of organic fertilizer (control, humic acid and compost application) and inoculation with Piriformospora indica (inoculation and uninoculation). Plant height, node number per plant, flower number per inflorescence, stem number per plant, leaf area index, plant yield, rosmarinic content and rosmarinic yield per area were studied. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using SAS software (version 9.1). Also, means comparison were compared by LSD test at 5% probability level. The results showed a significance different between two experimental locations so that Mashhad Arde hal showed better performance than Sen sen in terms of all studied traits. Among levels of chemical fertilizers, 50 and 100 kg/ha and between organic fertilizer, humic acid was recorded better result but biological fertilizers had no significance effect on studied traits, however, this fertilizer positive effects were obtained along with other fertilizer integrations. The highest plant yield (147.2 gr/m2) and rosmarinic acid yield per area (3.432 gr/m2) was achieved in 100 kg/ha at chemical fertilizer with humic acid and biological fertilizer application and the lowest plant yield (89.86 gr/m2) and rosmarinic acid yield per area (1.253 gr/m2) was observed in control. It seems that integrated application of chemical, organic and biological fertilizers improved soil physical and chemical properties and resulted in increase in availability of nutrients and ultimately the yield and quality of plants. Overall, Mashhad Arde hal due to good soil and climate charactristics was better for planting Perilla as compared to the Sen sen region. Also, integrated application of the studird fertilizers showed more positive effect on yield and quality of Perilla than individual application of those fertilizers

this study aims to determine the relationship between the roles of information technology and Regional Information Center for Science and Technology (RICeST) employees’ empowerment.

To this end, we employed survey research using Spreitzer psychological empowerment questionnaire and a modified IT questionnaire based on Olumi, Hejazi, and Shikh Sojaei questionnaire.
Findings: The results showed a statistical significant between RICeST employees’ attitudes toward the role of IT on their empowerment (Pα) and self-determination is not statistically significant (P=0.279>α). This result showed IT has no impact on self-efficacy and self-determination of RICeST employees regarding empowerment. On the contrary, they believed IT has positive and significant influence on their meaning (P=0.002), personal impact (P=0.082), and trust (P=0.002) in connection with employees’ empowerment.

Organizations as well as RICeST using new information technologies for administrative activities, training, and encouraging the staffs in this regard, can increase their abilities and improve the organization performances.

this study aims to compare the M. A and Ph. D. theses of technical and engineering courses in Shiraz University with ISO 214 international standards. content analysis and descriptive survey methods were used in this study. The population included 1194 Persian abstracts of M. A. theses and 23 abstracts of Ph. D. theses during the period of 1999 - 2009. To collect data، we compared the abstracts with ISO 214 standard. The findings showed that M. A and Ph. D. abstracts (x=5. 94، SD=1. 66) are in conformity with ISO international standards. The content of abstracts and the “aim” elements had the most conformity (89. 1%) with ISO 214; however the style and representation and the “key word” elements showed a low conformity with ISO 214. In general، Ph. D. theses abstracts (x=7. 04، SD=. 47) are more in accordance with ISO 214 than M. A theses abstracts (x=5. 92، SD= 1. 67). The abstracts of aerospace engineering theses showed the most conformity in terms of content (x=4، SD= 0) and in terms of representation style (x=3. 15، SD=. 69)

Citation is one of the journals ranking factors. Self-Citation rates regarding journals `performance، especially in international databases، is important. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of Journal self-Citation on Impact Factor of Iranian English medical journals indexed in the Web of Science and Islamic World Science Citation Center.

The Impact Factor of 12 journals in WoS and 26 in ISC were studied during years 2006-2009 using citation analysis and Journal self-Citation. Self-Citation rate were calculated using cited journals and citing journals tables in ISC. Wilcoxon test and Mann-whiteny test were used for comparison of self-citation rate between two databases. In order to determine any correlation between journal self-citation and IF in WoS، Pearson test was used. In ISC، Spearman test was performed. For comparison of two correlations test، Covariance test was used.

No significant difference between Journal self-citation rates in two databases was noted (p>0. 05). There was a significant correlation between Journal self-citation and Impact Factor in WoS (p=0. 007، r=0. 64). The correlation was not statistically significant in ISC (p>0. 05، rsp =0. 23). There was not any significant difference between the relations of Journal self-citation and impact factor in two databases (p=0. 526).

Attention to the Journal self-citation rates for comparison of Journal Impact Factor in WoS is more important than attention to the comparison of these journals between two Databases.

Pneumothorax is a potential life-threatening condition especially in patients with underlying disorders. In this study we compared the diagnostic accuracy of general practitioners and emergency medicine specialists in interpreting chest x-rays (CXR) suspected of having iatrogenic pneumothorax in emergency departments. This cross-sectional study was conducted in Shahid Chamran Hospital in Tehran, Iran during 2008- 2010. The study was designed to compare the ability of general practitioners and emergency medicine specialists in diagnosing iatrogenic pneumothorax regarding 500 CXRs of one-hundred patients admitted for upper central venous catheterization. General practitioners and emergency medicine specialists could accurately (P<0.001) diagnose pneumothorax in 484 (96.8%) and 497 (99.4%) CXRs, respectively. None of the underlying causes of the condition affected the diagnostic accuracy of both physician groups (P>0.05). These findings indicate that the diagnostic accuracy of emergency medicine specialists is significantly higher than those of general physicians. The diagnostic accuracy of both physician groups was higher than the values in similar studies that signifies the role of relevant training given in the emergency departments of the Hospital.

This study investigated six engineering scholarly journals and focused on scientific collaboration pattern, coefficient collaboration, Iranian international collaboration, and citation analysis. Findings showed that Iranian researchers authored 75.4% of articles themselves and 24.6% of articles with contribution of researchers from 25 countries worldwide. 367 articles that contributed by 1052 authors were studied. On average three researchers collaborated per article. Out of 1052 contributors, 814 affiliated to Iranian universities and 238 writers belonged to other countries. The results showed Indian researchers were more active than others were. Ranking universities in terms of numbers of articles showed that Iran University of Science and Technology obtained the first place. Coefficient collaboration disclosed the fact that there was a high tendency towards international collaboration e.g. the coefficient collaboration of Iranian Journal of Biotechnology was 0.668. In general, the findings would be helpful for journal’s editorial boards in engineering fields to improve their policies.

The aim of this research is to study the scientific outputs of faculty members of Shiraz University at national and International (ISI) levels in an 8-year period from 2000 to 2007. The population of this survey research included 543 faculty members of Shiraz University. Findings show that in the period studied, 8507 scientific outputs including 4218 journal papers, 3308 conference papers, 515 research projects, 376 books and 90 inventions and novel works were produced. In proportion to the number of faculty members, the highest number of scientific outputs were produced by the Faculty of Agriculture and the lowest number were produced by the Agriculture Faculty of Darab. The faculty members have mostly published their scientific papers in foreign journals, however, most of the papers have been written in Persian. Findings show that 87.90 % of the works produced are authored and only 12.09 % have been translated. The numbers of scientific outputs had greatly increased during the years studied and the highest numbers of outputs were produced in 2007. A total of 1853 papers of faculty members were published in the ISI database, the largest portion of which was produced by the Faculty of Science and smallest portion by the Faculty of Literature and Humanities. The number of papers published in ISI by faculty members grew considerably in the period studied and the highest number of papers was published in 2007. The findings from analysing 39 journals in which the highest number of papers of faculty members of Shiraz University were published showed that the papers of the research population have an international reputation and a high impact factor

This study investigates OIC members states‘ research findings indexed in Scopus in social science category during 2006-2008 based on citation analysis. Population includes 28 OIC members with more than one millions. The findings showed that Turkey، Iran، Malaysia and Nigeria in relation to numbers of articles obtained first to fourth places، respectively. Based on citation counts except Malaysia the three others kept their position. Out of 10619 articles، about 2933 articles (27. 6%) received citations. Mean H Index in Southeast Asia، southwest and south، north and central Asia and Africa is 6. 3، 4. 4، 3. 6، and 2. 8، respectively.