narges banaeian

The most important objective of this paper is to provide an appropriate model for selecting best waste-to-energy technology for both private and public sector managers and investors. Urban waste management combined with energy recovery can be the most suitable solution not only for preserving environment but also for producing and supplying energy to urban and rural communities. Determining the most appropriate waste-to-energy technology is a challenging and complex process, requiring consideration of a wide range of diverse criteria. For this purpose, this study tries to apply two of the most widely used Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods, TOPSIS and VIKOR. Anaerobic digestion (AD), incineration, and pyrolysis were chosen as the main options for waste-to-energy conversion technologies. These options were evaluated based on three main criteria: environmental, technical, and economic, each of which included various sub-criteria. The results of pairwise comparisons indicate that among main criteria, environmental criterion holds the highest score and importance, followed by the economic and technical criteria, respectively. To ensure reliability, the options were ranked using three different MCDM models methods Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), VIKOR, and TOPSIS. The overall results of the decision-making models show that incineration is the best waste-to-energy technology, followed by anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis in respective order.

Kiwi fruit is one of the most important export products of the country and Gilan province. The export of this product is often for fresh consumption, while dried kiwi can bring a lot of added value in addition to significantly reducing the cost of storage and transportation. One of the requirements for success in the field of dry kiwi production and export is to pay attention to the quality indicators of the product after drying, which is considered in this research. Aim of this research is the investigation of temperature (55, 65 and 75 ℃) and Phase Change Material (PCM) effect on four quality indicators of thin slices of kiwifruit including color changes, pH level, shrinkage percentage, marketability and consumer desirability. A total of six treatments were obtained by combining the independent variables. The drying process was carried out under the pretreatment of infrared power of 250 W, infrared time of 10 minutes, microwave power of 400 W, microwave time of 4 minutes and enzyme removal in a layered fixed bed dryer. This study was conducted as a randomized complete block design with four replications. Data analysis was done in IBM SPSS Statistics 26 software. In the end, in order to find the best treatment, Copeland integration technique was used. The results showed that the best treatment in terms of color changes is 75 ℃ - PCM, in terms of pH level is 65 ℃ - PCM, 65 ℃ - no PCM and 75 ℃ - no PCM and in terms of shrinkage percentage is 75 ℃ -no PCM, 55 ℃-no PCM and 75 ℃ - PCM. The superior treatment in the marketability section is 75℃- no PCM. The overall best treatment in terms of four quality indicators is 75℃- no PCM.

In recent years, with the increase of environmental concerns, application of scientific and practical tools in this field has been welcomed. Universities are the most appropriate place to develop environmental activities and strive to prioritize environmental practices more responsibly. The present study examines and selects green management development strategies in the University of Guilan as one of the leading universities in green management in higher education. According to the University of Guilan situation, 14 and 17 items were examined respectively as internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats) in the green management of the university through hierarchical analysis. One of the most important weaknesses is lack of infrastructure and fundamental facilities, which have led to high consumption of energy, materials and paper due to the deterioration of buildings and equipment, lack of energy control facilities, and etc. Evaluation of internal and external factors, integration and drawing of space matrix, showed that the green management of University of Guilan is in a situation where aggressive strategies take precedence over other strategies. Offensive strategies were quantitatively evaluated and ranked based on the strategic planning matrix. The results showed that the strategies of supporting green research projects, public culture and incentive policies are the most effective and best strategies for the development of green management at the University of Guilan, respectively.

Wheat is considered as a strategic plant in many countries including Iran. This crop has a special role in feeding and supplying energy to many people in world. In addition to economic aspects, the production of this crop is very important in term of food security. Due to the increase in global population and limited resources, serious efforts are being made to optimize agricultural processes and improve their productivity. In this regard, cultivation on high permanent ridges, known as “raised bed” planting, has been proposed as a new and efficient method in the production of various plants such as wheat. In many regions of the world including Iran, water is the most important limitation in agricultural productions. Raised bed cultivation method can improve water use efficiency. Therefore, in addition to the role of this method in improving yield per unit area, it is possible to produce more product with the available water resources. Also, in this method, preparation of seedbed and deep tillage is only needed in the first year to create ridges, and therefore energy consumption is also reduced in the following years. Regarding the effects of raised bed planting method, several studies have been conducted on different crops in some regions of the world, but due to the lack of consensus among these researches and the low generalizability of the results in the field of agriculture, it is necessary to conduct separate studies for each region and each crop. creates the need to conduct a separate study for each region and product. In the present study, the effect of raised bed planter in comparison with conventional grain drills was investigated on the quality of planting, water consumption, yield, costs, and economic profit of irrigated wheat cultivation.

To investigate the performance of different planters in a rotation system based on irrigated wheat, an experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design with three treatments and four replications in Moghan agro-industry, Pars Abad county, Ardabil province, Iran, in 2021-2022 crop year. The treatments included planting with raised bed planter (four rows on a 75 cm width ridge), a typical grain drill (three rows on a 60 cm width ridge), and a grain drill without furrower (seeding + furrowing). The measured traits included field capacity, seed breakage rate, germination percentage, seed distribution uniformity coefficient (horizontal and vertical), water use efficiency, number of spikes per unit area, number of seeds per spike, grain yield and harvest index. Partial budgeting method and final rate of return were used for economic evaluation, and comparison of means were done by LSD test. Excel and SPSS softwares were used for economic and statistical analysis.

The results showed that raised bed planting had a significant effect on most of the yield components at 5% probability level, and on harvest index and grain yield at 1% probability level. The highest grain yield (8611.75 kg.ha-1) was obtained using raised bed planter, which was 7% and 8% more than the second and third planting methods, respectively. The harvest index for these three methods was 47.54%, 42.62% and 41.26%, respectively. The results of the economic analysis showed that the application of raised bed planter was the most profitable. The net profit from these three cultivation methods was 87.85, 51.91 and 42.51 million rials per hectare, respectively. The final return rate of replacement of the raised bed planter compared to the conventional seed drill and the seed drill without furrower was also calculated 123.95% and 173.73%, respectively.

The use of raised bed planter resulted in a significant increase in net profit in the first year, but multi-year studies are needed for a more comprehensive investigation. The need for deeper tillage and the preparation of high ridges in the first year, as well as the high price and low field capacity of the planter, increased the costs of the seedbed preparation and planting operations, but the reduction in seed consumption to some extent moderates this increase in cost. In contrast, the increase in revenue resulting from a significant increase in crop yield was much greater than the cost changes. In addition to increasing the direct profit of farmers, saving water and energy in the raised bed cultivation method is another reason for the preference of this method over the conventional methods, because farmers do not pay the real cost of these two inputs. However, more studies are needed to remove the obstacles to the expansion of this cultivation method.

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of temperature (55, 65, and 75 ℃) and phase change materials (PCM) on four measurable factors: total energy consumption, specific energy consumption (SEC), drying time, and consistency of drying. Six treatments were achieved by combining independent variables. The pre-treatment for drying involved using an infrared power of 250 W for 10 minutes, followed by a microwave power of 400 W for 4 minutes. Enzyme removal was done in a layered fixed bed dryer. The research utilized a randomized complete block design with four replications for the variables of total energy consumption, specific energy consumption, and drying time. The variable of uniformity was repeated six times as part of the factorial experiment. The data analysis was conducted using the IBM SPSS Statistics 26 program. Copeland's method integration approach was utilized to determine the optimal treatment. According to the findings, the treatments had an insignificant impact on total energy consumption. The most energy-efficient treatment was observed to be at 75°C without PCM, with a recorded value of 1.02 kWh/kg. The best treatment in terms of total energy consumption, specific energy consumption, and drying time was found to be at a temperature of 75℃ without the use of PCM.

In this study, the supply chain performance of rice farm machinery at retail level in Guilan and Mazandaran provinces was evaluated using SCOR model. Rice machine dealers were evaluated  in five sections using 93 items. Based on the results of single sample T-test, the variables of efficiency, coordination and integration were significantly higher than the mean value. The clustering process of sales agents was based on the average items. Clustering results showed that the performance of sales representatives two main levels: desirable and undesirable. In order to improve the supply chain management situation, the performance of nearly half of the stores should be corrected. In this study DEA was proposed as a method for evaluating the efficiency of the SCOR model, which is one of the innovations of this research. The results of the DEA confirmed the cluster analysis results and the efficiency of about half of the units was calculated equal to one. Based on the results of the study, in order to improve the performance of rice agricultural machinery stores, it’s better to focus on measures that improve quality of service delivery and increase customer reliability.

Savojbolagh is the main region of hydroponic greenhouse agriculture in Iran and is of the capacity to produce the highest in greenhouse production strawberry. The aims followed in this study were to calculate the energy use pattern and determine the relationship between energy input in greenhouse strawberry production and its yield through a linear programming model as based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Technical efficiency of greenhouses were calculated and target input energies optimized. Results indicated that greenhouse strawberry production consumed a total energy of 800 GJ ha-1 with a specific energy of 12.5 MJ kg-1calculated. Linear Regression Analysis indicated that the impacts of diesel fuel, fertilizer, electricity and human labour were significant on yield. These effective inputs were assumed as inputs while yield as an output in the model of DEA and the technical efficiency of a greenhouse (in input oriented variable return to scale model) estimated. Energy technical efficiency of strawberry producing greenhouses was estimated as 0.93 and the maximum possible contribution to the total energy savings was estimated 61% that could come from diesel fuel saving. A determination of real and target energy inputs in inefficient greenhouses revealed that 16% of resources could be saved by raising the performance of these greenhouses to their highest possible level.

Optimum working life of tractor and farm machinery employed in potato production in Hamadan Province was assessed through Data Envelopment Analysis. An input oriented model was applied to determine the optimized machinery system. In this model inputs were the lifetime of tractor as well as seven involved machines including moldboard plow, potato planter, chemical fertilizer spreader, tractor mounted sprayer, furrower, potato haulm cutter and potato digger, while outputs were: yield (kg ha-1), economic return (kg thousand Rials-1) and energy (kg MJ-1) as productivity indices of potato cultivation. Results revealed that 38% of farms were inefficient. They, due to old machinery, cannot be economically efficient and are spending extra energy. On the other side, efficient farms, through an employment of optimized new machinery pay less maintenance cost and can produce more economically with a less energy spending. Also, analysis showed that the utmost mechanization employed on the farms is the use of tractor and moldboard plow. If inefficient farms use suitable mechanization systems, they can raise to even a duplicate level, their economic return by raising their energy productivity (up to 70%) and improving the yield.