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Background: Recent technological developments in medicine, including modern radiology have promoted the impact of scientific researches on social life. The scientific outputs such as article and patents are products that show the scientists' attempt to access these achievements. Objectives: In the current study, we evaluate the current situation of Iranian scientists in the field of radiology and compare it with the selected countries in terms of scientific papers. For this purpose, we used scientometric tools to quantitatively assess the scientific papers in the field of radiology. Materials and Methods: Radiology papers were evaluated in the context of medical field audit using retrospective model. We used the related databases of biomedical sciences for extraction of articles related to radiology. In the next step, the situation of radiology scientific products of the country were determined with respect to the under study regional countries. Results: Results of the current study showed a ratio of 0.19% for Iranian papers in PubMed database published in 2009. In addition, in 2009, Iranian papers constituted 0.29% of the Scopus scientific database. The proportion of Iranian papers in the understudy region was 7.6%. Conclusion: To diminish the gap between Iranian scientific radiology papers and other competitor countries in the region and achievement of document 2 025 goals, multifold effort of the society of radiology is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The U.S. Department of Treasury has ruled that scientific journals based in the U.S. cannot edit papers submitted by authors from Iran unless they have the government's permission. The policy, described in a letter sent last week to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), stems from rules prohibiting U.S. organizations from engaging in trade with Iran. Editing is a "service" that requires a special license, notes the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces trade sanctions. No license is needed for reviewing submissions, the letter states, or for publishing them if no revisions are made. IEEE officials, who plan to apply at once for a license, say they pursued the issue to clarify the matter for all publishers. IEEE stripped its 1700 members in Iran of several benefits in January 2002 after deciding that providing these services could be illegal. Michael Adler, president of IEEE says the association plans to restore electronic access to its journals, which is exempt under the regulations, once it separates journal access from other Web-based membership services.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or the Iranian Nuclear Deal was a real success of multilateral diplomacy. A transaction in the global request to stop the Iranian nuclear proliferation. The paper focuses on the United States withdraw from JCPOA and the difficulty of European Union to maintain the agreement. The research paper also proposes to answer at two key questions, which will provide as much analysis as possible on the Comprehensive Joint Action Plan. Which theory of international relations best explains the current situation of the Iranian Nuclear Agreement? What is the role of diplomacy in ratifying the agreement? The results have shown that the relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America seemed to have every chance of escalating into a war, but the diplomacy is effective, while the European Union uses economic instruments to save the deal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dokuz Eylul University Journal of Graduate School of Social Sciences is the property of Dokuz Eylul University Graduate School of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyses the influence of food safety standards related to aflatoxin contamination on the pistachio trade of the world's two leading pistachio producers (the United States and Iran) during the period 1996–2014. Using diverse econometric procedures, the estimation of extended gravity models shows that both countries benefit from stricter food safety standards imposed by importing countries. The results also show that US exports are not negatively affected by the distance from the importer (higher differentiation), while the impact of distance on the Iranian pistachio trade is negative. The results reveal that stricter food safety requirements are positive for both producing countries, regardless of their level of economic development, resulting in a "win–win" scenario. However, the findings also confirm that other variables, such as distance, the role of producers' associations and quality perception, should be considered. [EconLit citations: F10, F63, I18, Q17]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims: Dentistry is an important profession ensuring the health of body and soul, and has a special place in the scientific productions of medical disciplines. The purpose of this study was to analyze the co-citation and word co-occurrence of Iranian research papers in the field of dentistry based on indexed documents in Web of Science from 2014 to 2018. Materials and Methods: The present study follows the procedures related to quantitative research with a descriptive approach and a scientometric technique. Co-citation and cooccurrence analysis techniques were used. In this study, 1079 articles were reviewed from the Web of Science. Data analysis was performed Ucinet Software, and VOS viewer. Results: Iran has the highest level of international cooperation with the United States. The highest number of published articles in the Web of Science Database belongs to Vahid Derakhshani based on the highest degree of centrality, the Eigen centrality, and the Betweenness centrality. Naser Amin Abadi ranked first for the Closeness Centrality metric, and Massoud Peirokh with a citation weight of 20 had the highest citation. The field of surgery has received the most attention among dental and endodontics journal had the highest citation in the Iranian Dental Science Citation Network. Conclusion: The trend of publishing scientific articles in Iran in the field of dentistry has been increasing during the selected period. The keywords oral, dental, and pediatric surgery have the most effective and decisive role in the scientific network of dentistry. These keywords provided strong scientific communication amongst the dental scholars in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The various possibilities that social media offers to language learners and teachers have long been recognized by researchers within the field of language instruction, and many studies have been carried out in an attempt to address and unpack its potential contributions. This paper aims to review such research on the use of mainstream social media in language teaching and learning published in "Computer Assisted Language Learning," a top tier (i.e., Q1) journal indexed in major citation index systems (e.g., Arts & Humanities Citation Index, the Social Sciences Citation Index and Scopus), between the years 2016-2020 inclusive. For the purposes of the study, a total of 23 articles that meet the selection criteria is reviewed and presented in five sections. The first section deals with the majority of the articles, which are found to be on the use of social networking in language teaching and learning. In the following sections, studies on the use of videoconferencing, wikis, blogging and forums are discussed. Collectively, the studies reviewed in this paper outline a critical role for the use of social media in language instruction and the study aims to provide valuable insights for researchers, teachers and learners.

Copyright of International Relations / Uluslararasi Iliskiler is the property of International Relations Council and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: The Co-word analysis has the ability to identify the intellectual structure of knowledge in a research domain and reveal its subsurface research aspects. Objective: This study examines the intellectual structure of knowledge in the field of Andrology during the period 2008-2017 using Co-word analysis. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study with a scientometric approach, the WoS database was searched for papers indexed under "Andrology" over the period 2008--2017. The data were analyzed using Co-word, clustering methods, and strategic diagram with the help of SPSS, UcInet, RavarPreMap and VOSviewer software. Results: The highest publication rate in the area of Andrology was seen in countries like the USA, China, Italy, and Iran. The top three journals that published papers on the field were Fertility and Sterility, Andrologia, Human reproduction. The results showed that the keyword "Spermatozoa" and two pairs of frequently used keywords, namely "Azoospermia * Oligospermia" were the most frequent in the field of Andrology. The results of hierarchical clustering led to 13 clusters. The clusters "Reproductive Techniques" and "Spermatogenesis" are the core clusters and play an effective role. The "Post-Testicular causes" and "Neoplasm" clusters are in marginal. Conclusion: This study represented that Co-word analysis can well illustrate the intellectual structure of an area. Considering the frequency of keywords along with the clusters obtained, it seems that the majority of research approach was seen on infertility treatments, especially through assisted reproductive technology. Despite the importance of psychological aspects as well as education of reproductive health, these subjects have not been sufficiently considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While almost a decade old, Ted Hopf’s observation that the democratic peace is an observation in search of a theory still holds validity. In particular, the mechanisms behind the democratic peace are poorly understood, making it difficult for scholars to provide a compelling explanation. Underappreciated in the existing work is the role of identity and the importance this has for driving the democratic peace. With a focus on developing a dyadic democratic peace mechanism and using a case study approach, this paper utilizes the Copenhagen School’s securitization framework to examine how identity plays out in the US response to the Indian and Iranian nuclear programs. It finds that in fact identity does play an important role in how security policy is constructed. In policy terms, if the democratic peace does rely on identity to trigger the constraining norms that limit the escalation of conflict to violence, it is unlikely the democratic peace can be spread by force and it is possible that states nominally democratic can be excluded from the community of democracies if their behavior or significant other aspects of their perceived identity are at variance with the accepted democratic identity standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the variables having impact on the student motivation have been analyzed based on the articles, conference papers, master's theses and doctoral dissertations published in the years 2000-2017. A total of 165 research papers were selected for the research material and the data were collected through qualitative research techniques through document review and content analysis. According to the research results, the most important factors affecting student motivation are the fields of teacher, teachers' classroom management skills and their teaching methods. In this research, factors having less influence on the student motivation are parental communication, student characteristics and study fields. In addition, relational search type was used more than others, mostly students were selected as the study group and most researches were conducted in USA and Turkey.

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Smile esthetics can be subjective. This study aims to assess the effect of culture/geographic location on judging smile esthetics by comparing the perception of smile characteristics between American laypersons (Western culture) and Iranians (Eastern). Materials and Methods: One hundred residents from each country were recruited for this analytical cross-sectional study. A frontal picture of a posed smile with standard norms which are mentioned in the Contemporary Orthodontics textbook by William R. Proffit was selected. Adobe Photoshop 7 was used to alter midline diastema, gingival display (GD), maxillary midline-to-face discrepancy, buccal corridor (BC), and smile arc. Images were given to groups to determine the most attractive and acceptable smile. Data were analyzed by Chi-square, Mann-Whitney, and Spearman correlation coefficient in SPSS-22 (α = 0.05). Results: Americans were less critical in judging diastema (P < 0.001), GD (P = 0.013), and BC (P = 0.004) for smile attractiveness than Iranians. No difference was between the two groups in choosing the acceptability threshold and determining the most attractive smile except for BC (P = 0.002). Conclusion: Overall, Americans were more tolerant of variations in smile characteristics than Iranians. Both groups agreed on most smiles. Therefore, it seems that it is reasonable to use similar standards for smile characteristics while considering the small differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Previous systematic reviews have found insufficient and conflicting evidence for an association between the clinical and radiographic diagnosis of functional constipation. Abdominal X-ray is frequently used for the diagnosis of functional constipation in clinical practice. The objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of abdominal X-ray for the evaluation of functional constipation in children. Results: Three studies were included in the final qualitative analysis. They were heterogeneous in their study design, definition of constipation, and radiologic parameters used to evaluate the abdominal X-rays. Sensitivities ranged from 73–92%, specificities ranged from 26–92%, and diagnostic accuracies ranged from 78–90%. Methods: This study involved a systematic review of English literature published between 2012 and 2022 covering children 2–18 years of age with a diagnosis of functional constipation in whom abdominal X-ray was performed. The databases searched include Medline, Embase, and Scopus. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 (QUADAS-2) guidelines were followed. PROSPERO ID: CRD42022301833. Conclusions: There is insufficient evidence to support the use of abdominal X-ray as part of the diagnostic workup of functional constipation. More methodologically rigorous studies are needed to determine the utility of abdominal X-ray in the evaluation of functional constipation. The diagnosis of functional constipation should be based on history and clinical findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports preliminary findings on students enrolled in a massive open online course, who were also assigned to work in groups. Part of a larger study on the effect of groups on retention and completion in MOOCs, the paper provides students' demographics (i.e., location, gender, education level, and employment status), and motivation for taking the course. Findings show that women outnumbered men and that students mostly enrolled into the course because of a friend. Indeed, research on MOOCs demonstrates that men outnumber women and that educational pursuit and professional development are the main motivators for taking MOOCs. Yet, this paper shows that when group work is included in a MOOC, women participate more. Furthermore, for students assigned to groups in a MOOC, friends are the principal incentive for enrolling into the course. These results are discussed in light of previous research, and implications for teaching and learning in online environments addressed.

Background: Patient safety in primary care is an emerging field of research with a growing evidence base in western countries but little has been explored in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries (GCC) including the Sultanate of Oman. This study aimed to review the literature on the safety culture and patient safety measures used globally to inform the development of safety culture among health care workers in primary care with a particular focus on the Middle East. Methods: A systematic review of the literature. Searches were undertaken using Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL and Scopus from the year 2000 to 2014. Terms defining safety culture were combined with terms identifying patient safety and primary care. Results: The database searches identified 3072 papers that were screened for inclusion in the review. After the screening and verification, data were extracted from 28 papers that described safety culture in primary care. The global distribution of the articles is as follows: the Netherlands (7), the United States (5), Germany (4), the United Kingdom (1), Australia, Canada and Brazil (two for each country), and with one each from Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The characteristics of the included studies were grouped under the following themes: safety culture in primary care, incident reporting, safety climate and adverse events. The most common theme from 2011 onwards was the assessment of safety culture in primary care (13 studies, 46%). The most commonly used safety culture assessment tool is the Hospital survey on patient safety culture (HSOPSC) which has been used in developing countries in the Middle East. Conclusions: This systematic review reveals that the most important first step is the assessment of safety culture in primary care which will provide a basic understanding to safety-related perceptions of health care providers. The HSOPSC has been commonly used in Kuwait, Turkey, and Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global shortage of viable organs for transplantation, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, highlights a stark contrast between organ donation systems, particularly evident in the United States and Iran. While the United States relies on an altruistic donation system, resulting in millions on its waiting list, Iran's compensation-based approach has nearly eradicated its waitlist. The legal framework of the United States, shaped by property law, historical views on the human body, and federal statutes, complicates its approach to organ donation. The reluctance to grant individual rights to body parts hampers success compared to Iran's incentivization approach. Beyond learning from Iran's legalized organ market, this Note argues that the United States should grant complete ownership rights in organs to the individual to provide more viable organs, promote autonomy, punish discriminatory behavior, and expand legal protections for the individual. Much like Dr. Frankenstein, the United States can no longer ignore the consequences of its own creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poisoning morbidity and mortality is high in the developing world. Systems for care of poisoned patients differ markedly between countries. In this paper a comparison of two very different systems for the care of poisoned patients, is presented. Specifically, the role of poison centers and poison treatment centers in the US and Iran are contrasted. A systematic literature search was undertaken utilizing the PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar and the keywords "poison centers", "treatment" "Iran" "United States of America" and 100 publications were identified. From these, relevant data were found in 23 publications. The information was double-checked and data were summarized herein. We find that the system of the care of poisoned patients relies heavily on certified poison centers in the US and that only a few hospitals have well developed medical toxicology services. In contrast, in Iran, the poison center system is somehow less developed and the care of poisoned patients is provided in centralized high volume hospital poison units. Although both the US and Iran have highly developed systems for the care of poisoned patients they are distinctly different. Comparative studies based on these systems could provide important data for developing countries with more rudimentary poison control and treatment facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two ways that oil exports from the Middle East can be disrupted in the current political climate are sanctions on Iran and Iran blockading the Strait of Hormuz. In considering the impact that these actions might have on the United States and other oil importers, it is important to consider such factors as characteristics of the blocked oil, how other exporters might react, and the possible release by importers of strategic reserves. The paper also provides some historical perspective on how past supply disruptions were resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games have been introduced as a means for studying cross-cultural differences and societies. This paper presents a case study in analogous games played by children in two different countries with two different cultures - Iran and the United States. Four examples are presented to demonstrate that games played by Iranian children are subject to less objectivity in their rules. Therefore, nonobjectivity may be a phenomenon that has roots in the society and the many differences between the two societies may very well be the results of this fundamental difference. If the presence of objectivity in childhood game rules could be, in actuality, indicative of objectivity in social and civil interactions in the everyday lives of the people, the direction of causality remains to be established. In other words, it remains unclear whether the games influence the culture or are influenced by the mandates of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran-US relations have been poor since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. All efforts to improve the relations have been frustrated. A rapprochement seems highly unlikely, especially, due to the Iranian nuclear program. Tehran has rejected such accusations and emphasized that their nuclear program is intended for civilian purposes. This paper examines the main claims and counter claims between Iran and the US, especially over terrorism-related issues. It argues that the US should revise its foreign policy, from aggressive and arrogant tactics to a policy of engagement and face-to-face negotiations. This paper emphasizes that the continuations of hard line policies, such as sanctions and war, against Iran would be counterproductive and will throw the whole region in turmoil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the issue of the regulations set out by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control related to the sanctions on the publication of research from Iranian medical practitioners and academics. It states that the U.S. citizens are authorized to engage with in ordinary transactions related to written publications which are not employed by the Iranian government under the sanctions.

This paper provides background and history of economic sanctions on Iran. Particular attention is paid to the effectiveness of the sanctions and to factors that have mitigated their effectiveness. The United States and other countries have joined in a coalition to impose the sanctions, but it will be difficult to maintain the coalition and get cooperation of nonparticipant countries if there is a major oil price increase. Measures are recommended to reduce this risk and maintain the effectiveness of the sanctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the outbreak of a disease caused by a pathogen with unknown characteristics, the uncertainty of its progression parameters can be reduced by devising methods that, based on rational assumptions, exploit available information to provide actionable insights. In this study, performed a few (~6) weeks into the outbreak of COVID-19 (caused by SARS-CoV-2), one of the most important disease parameters, the average time-to-recovery, was calculated using data publicly available on the internet (daily reported cases of confirmed infections, deaths, and recoveries), and fed into an algorithm that matches confirmed cases with deaths and recoveries. Unmatched cases were adjusted based on the matched cases calculation. The mean time-to-recovery, calculated from all globally reported cases, was found to be 18.01 days (SD 3.31 days) for the matched cases and 18.29 days (SD 2.73 days) taking into consideration the adjusted unmatched cases as well. The proposed method used limited data and provided experimental results in the same region as clinical studies published several months later. This indicates that the proposed method, combined with expert knowledge and informed calculated assumptions, could provide a meaningful calculated average time-to-recovery figure, which can be used as an evidence-based estimation to support containment and mitigation policy decisions, even at the very early stages of an outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective The first years of life are particularly important because vital developments occur in all development domains including motor, cognition, communication, and social-emotional. Early detection of developmental delays is essential in planning for early intervention. This study aims to standardize the score of bayley scales of infants and toddlers development-third edition (Bayley-III) for Iranian samples aged 1-42 months. Materials & Methods Participants included 1700 children divided into 17 age groups of 100 children. The normative information was based on a national sample representative of Iran's population for infants aged 1-42 months based on the 2011 national population and housing census. For each age group, the total raw scores of each Bayley-III subscale (cognition, receptive communication, expressive communication, fine motor, and gross motor) were converted to scaled scores with a Mean±SD of 10±3. The composite scores (cognition, language and motor domains) were obtained by summing up the scaled scores. The composite scores were scaled to a metric with Mean±SD of 100±15 ranged 40-160. Growth scores (ranged 200-800, with a Mean±SD 500±100), percentile ranks (ranged from 1-99, with 50 as the mean and median), and developmental age equivalent were also determined. Confidence intervals for all five subscales were also determined. To compare the development level of the US children (norm samples) and Iranian children, their mean raw scores in five subscales were compared for finding the difference in scores. Results The Bayley-III was performed on 1744 children aged 0-42 months, including 908 (52.1%) girls and 836 (47.9%) boys. In comparing the development level of Iranian and US children, it was found that the mean scores were significantly different in 28 age groups (P<0.05). In seven age groups, the US children's scores were higher (age groups <6 months), and in 21 age groups, the scores of Iranian children were higher (age groups >6 months). Conclusion For early detection and intervention of children with developmental delays, a test with a normalized score should be used in Iran. Using the US norm-based scores in Iranian children leads to inaccuracy in the early detection of children with developmental delays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Persian Gulf, regarded as the "heart" of the Middle East, witnessed the struggle of regional hegemony that took place between Iran and Iraq, which are the two important representatives of Arabic and Persian culture, during the 20th century. The balances in the area changed drastically with the United States of America's (USA) invasion of Iraq in 2003. One of the most important results of the war is that Iran, seizing the opportunity for strategic expansion in the Middle East in general and in the Persian Gulf in particular, attained indisputable supremacy against Iraq. After the invasion of Iraq The Teheran administration started to reshape its relations with Iraq. Iran's Iraqi policy on the subjects such as Iraqi Shiites, Northern Iraqi Regional Kurdish Administration, economic and commercial relationships is analyzed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The behavior and the policies pursued by Iran's current leadership pose profound and wide-ranging challenges to U.S. interests, the interests of its friends and allies, and the international community as a whole. Particularly concerning is Iran's ability to foment instability through the use of terrorism. Recognizing this, the authors participated in a series of roundtables, discussions, and forums on Iranian Malign Influence. Participants included military and civilian experts from a number of Middle Eastern, European, and Central Asian countries, U.S. think tanks, and U.S. intelligence and interagency subject matter experts. This paper is a reflection of the insightful dialogue that took place during these engagements, and also incorporates newly declassified U.S. government information on Iran's support for terrorism. This review revealed a need for a regional response to Iran's malign activities in the region. Regional governments must take action to neutralize Iranian intelligence networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicting dynamics and power calculations within the Bush administration have given rise to contradictory signals coming from Washington regarding how best to deal with the Iranian puzzle. The situation indicates a lack of strategic coherence that could tip the balance toward a military showdown with Iran. If anything, the 2001 and 2003 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have essentially altered the balance of power to Iran's advantage, represent a total disregard for the ensuing negative consequences for the region. Under such circumstances, the absence of serious, direct talks with Iran have the potential to lead to greater momentum for war. In this paper, we set out to examine the internal and regional consequences of a U.S. attack on Iran, while asserting that the benefits of cooperation outweigh the costs of military confrontation. Negotiating with Iran is the only reasonable solution to the crisis confronting these two powers, and U.S.-Iran rapprochement can have a stabilizing impact on the entire region. Conversely, the implications of confrontation will be horrendously costly and profound. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What led to the calamitous drop in Iran's oil revenues in January 1977? Politics, religion, culture, and economics have been identified as factors contributing to the collapse of Iran's monarchy in 1979. But until now scholars have been unable to access documents that could shed light on the inner workings of the relationship between senior US officials and the Shah of Iran, whom Henry Kissinger lauded as "that rarest of leaders, an unconditional ally, and one whose understanding of the world enhanced our own." The declassification of the papers of Brent Scowcroft, who worked in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, marks a significant milestone in our understanding of the origins of the Iranian Revolution. They reveal that in 1976 the US and Saudi Arabia colluded to force down oil prices, inadvertently triggering a financial crisis that destabilized Iran's economy and weakened the Shah's hold on power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the interactions between Iran's democratic process and international community. Iranian people established the Islamic Revolution in the 1970s under the leadership of Imam Khomeini. Although the Islamic Revolution has caused many changes in political and social issues in Iran, the process of reform and alteration is still going ahead. To understand the process of democratization in Iran, we need to study the nature of Iranian religious psychology. Iran's contemporary history provides the best background to analyze the current situation. This paper argues that any attempt to impose democracy by foreign players would face defeat," democratic reforms should be shaped by Iranian indigenous struggle. During the past 27 years, the Iranian society has been moving forward and has now gained great success in this regard. American involvement, especially military intervention, would be counterproductive and expensive. The international community should recognize the Iranian situation and the US needs to take lessons from its past failures in Iran and should respect the Iranian right to shape their own destiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to the writings of many political analysts, there are many fronts on which to battle the United States. Iran has considered opening another front by leading an assault on the U.S. dollar. Will it succeed? Our writer thinks it will not, partly because, as of now, the dollar's sources of strength are considerable. But he realizes that the dollar could come under more serious pressure in coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the dialectical nature of the relationships between the U.S. and Iran. The links inquired is particularly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the Iranian responses to the State of the Nation address given by George W. Bush, the U.S. president, which classified Iran as a member of the Axis of Evil. The paper also argues that the terrorist attacks had altered the nature of the U.S. foreign policy making.

On May 8, 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the United States would withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. President Trump had campaigned on removing the U.S. from the nuclear agreement, but the announcement still caught Iran and other parties to the JCPOA by surprise. This research analyzed three days of JCPOA-related news headlines from two international broadcasters: Press TV, headquartered in Tehran, and Voice of America, located in Washington, D.C. The majority of headlines published by both news organizations exhibited negative tone. Considering that reading a headline often substitutes for reading an entire news report, examining the headlines these international broadcasters used to present this event to their global audiences is a worthwhile pursuit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hospital accreditation (HA) is an external evaluation of a hospital's structures, processes and results by an independent professional accreditation body using pre-established optimum standards. The Iranian hospital accreditation system faces several challenges. The overall aim of this study was to develop a model for Iran national hospital accreditation program.Methods: This research uses the modified Delphi technique to develop and verify a model of hospital accreditation. The first draft of the HA model was introduced through a critical review of 20 pioneer accreditation models and semi-structured interviews with 151 key informants from Public, private, semi-public, charity and military hospitals in Iran. Three rounds of Delphi were conducted with 28 experts of hospital accreditation to verify the proposed model. Panel members were selected from authors of research articles and key speakers in the area of hospital accreditation, senior managers of the country's health system, university professors in the fields of health policy and management across the country.Results: A comprehensive model for hospital accreditation was introduced and verified in this study. The HA model has ten constructs of which seven are enablers ("Management and leadership", "Planning", "Education and Research", "employee management", "patient management", "resource management", and "process management") and three are the results ("employee results", "patient and society results" and "hospital results"). These constructs were further broken into 43 sub-constructs. The enablers and results scored 65 and 35% of the model's total scores respectively. Then, about 150 accreditation standards were written and verified.Conclusions: A comprehensive hospital accreditation model was developed and verified. Proper attention to structures, processes and outcomes and systemic thinking during the development of the model is one of the advantages of the hospital accreditation model developed in this study. Hospital accreditation bodies can use this model to develop or revise their hospital accreditation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the COVID-19 pandemic, patients who are older and residents of long-term care facilities (LTCF) are at greatest risk of worse clinical outcomes. We reviewed discharge criteria for hospitalised COVID-19 patients from 10 countries with the highest incidence of COVID-19 cases as of 26 July 2020. Five countries (Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chile and Iran) had no discharge criteria; the remaining five (USA, India, Russia, South Africa and the UK) had discharge guidelines with large inter-country variability. India and Russia recommend discharge for a clinically recovered patient with two negative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests 24 h apart; the USA offers either a symptom based strategy—clinical recovery and 10 days after symptom onset, or the same test-based strategy. The UK suggests that patients can be discharged when patients have clinically recovered; South Africa recommends discharge 14 days after symptom onset if clinically stable. We recommend a unified, simpler discharge criteria, based on current studies which suggest that most SARS-CoV-2 loses its infectivity by 10 days post-symptom onset. In asymptomatic cases, this can be taken as 10 days after the first positive PCR result. Additional days of isolation beyond this should be left to the discretion of individual clinician. This represents a practical compromise between unnecessarily prolonged admissions and returning highly infectious patients back to their care facilities, and is of particular importance in older patients discharged to LTCFs, residents of which may be at greatest risk of transmission and worse clinical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]