The aim of this study was to present decentralization strategies in the Iranian education system by identifying weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats to decentralization through "SWOT" matrix. Preliminary data for identifying internal and external factors influencing the way education is administered were obtained through semi-structured interviews with 25 experts and senior and middle managers of education. Analysis of the interview transcripts led to the emergence of sixteen internal factors and eighteen external factors. Results were sent to the participants for validation and rating. The sum of the final weighting coefficients in both internal and external domains shows that the current status of education and its strategies are not effective enough to reduce weaknesses and threats or exploit strengths and opportunities. Comparison of factors in the analytical matrix led to the emergence of thirteen strategies in competitive, aggressive, defensive and conservative domains. These strategies can use opportunities and strengths to control threats and weaknesses and facilitate the effective implementation of decentralization schemes. Introduction: Iran enjoys diverse climates, economic and social conditions and subcultures. Therefore, residents of each region have different educational needs. Meanwhile, Iran's education system has a completely centralized structure which offers the same educational programs and lessons throughout the country. Education plays an important role in the development process. Therefore, there is an urgent need for internal development of this institution on which all aspects of development depend. A large organization such as education department with so many problems in planning, organization, coordination, supervision and leadership, a school-based management should be developed and applied (Jafari, 2021). Furthermore, centralized management of education in Iran has reduced the inefficiency and effectiveness of schools. Therefore, experts have emphasized the need for revising and transforming education system in line with decentralization and delegation of authority (Jafari Moghadam & Fani, 2002). Many administrators and experts acknowledge the inefficiency of the current centralized structure, emphasize the need for decentralization of the Iranian education system, and mention concentration as the cause of many problems in Iran's education system (Farhadi Rad et al., 2019). Another study also confirms the necessity of revising the centralized educational system of a country with the climatic, cultural, social and economic characteristics of Iran (Quak, 2020,EASNIE, 2017). Therefore, the main objective of this research is to identify and introduce strategies that can use internal organizational strengths and environmental opportunities to manage the weaknesses and threats in the direction of decentralization in Iran's education system. Methodology: This research is a qualitative study based on grounded theory. The data collection tool was a semi-structured interviews. The data recorded in the interview process was coded based on the SWOT model to identify and extract internal factors (weaknesses and strengths) and external factors (opportunities and threats). For this purpose, the internal strengths and weaknesses of education and environmental opportunities and threats that can hinder or facilitate decentralization were identified and coded based on the experiences and studies of the participants. The target population in this research included senior high and middle managers of education after the Islamic Revolution, who had more management experience, and experts with studies related to education. Purposive sampling was used to select 15 managers with the most managerial records in education and 10 experts. Despite achieving theoretical saturation by 14 interviews, eight other managers and experts were also interviewed online in order to strengthen the validity of the data. The identified factors resulting from open coding, which were approved by the participants, were classified during axial coding under the categories of strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities, and validated through member check and external check. The weighted score of the factors was calculated based on the opinion of the participants. Four strategies were identified in the final matrix and prioritized based on the quantitative strategic planning matrix (QSPM). Results: According to the opinions, experiences and studies of the participants, the weaknesses and threats were experienced far more than the strengths and opportunities. In this analysis, ten threats and ten weaknesses were identified. Meanwhile, six internal organizational strengths and eight environmental opportunities were identified, which were approved by the participants and supervising experts. The final score in both internal and external domains was less than 2. 5, which shows that the current strategies have not been effective in dealing with the existing factors. The set of internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats) identified are reflected in Table 1. SWOT matrix analysis also led to the identification of three aggressive strategies, four competitive strategies, three defensive strategies and three conservative strategies. The matrix for determining the four strategies is shown in Table 2. The output of QSPM shows that the strategy of "gradual increase in the powers of provincial, district and school councils" with a score of 3. 37 is the first priority and the strategy of "empowering human resources" with a score of 2. 22, is the last priority. We are providing solutions for each of the identified strategies. These solutions were identified in the process of coding the interview transcripts, based on the participants’ opinions. Some of the most important solutions include continuous communication with the members of the parliament (MPs) and inviting them to participate in the meetings of the educational councils, compiling local plans in line with the reform document with the participation of managers, teachers and experts in each region, developing and strengthening agricultural, technical and vocational schools in local fields of study, forming scientific associations, gradual delegation of parts of the responsibility of monitoring educational content and quality to related associations, designing and implementing programs to acquaint local students with common cultural roots, facilitating the establishment of schools affiliated to the public and private sectors, presenting incentive schemes for the transfer of headquarters forces to districts and schools, forming the Strategic Council for Education Reforms with the presence of representatives of the legislative, judicial, executive and influential institutions and creating communication networks between scientific associations and regional councils. Discussion and conclusion: Experts and even education managers agree on the problems of the ineffectiveness of the current centralized structure of education and the necessity of its reform and decentralization. This structure does not respond to individual and social needs and environmental changes, and it should be modified according to the current conditions. However, factors inside and outside the system have always prevented reform and decentralization. Some of these factors are caused by the centralized structure of the political system and some are due to the resistance of powerful groups who prevent decentralization in order to protect their interests. The application of strategies such as "formation of the Strategic Council of Reforms" and "establishing continuous communication with political managers and MPs" to gain the support of political and legislative power institutions, facilitates the implementation of decentralization. Under the support of these institutions, it is possible to gradually delegate the authority of decision-making and planning according to local conditions and needs to provinces, regions and schools.

Multi-label classification aims at assigning more than one label to each instance. Many real-world multi-label classification tasks are high dimensional, leading to reduced performance of traditional classifiers. Feature selection is a common approach to tackle this issue by choosing prominent features. Multi-label feature selection is an NP-hard approach, and so far, some swarm intelligence-based strategies and have been proposed to find a near optimal solution within a reasonable time. In this paper, a hybrid intelligence algorithm based on the binary algorithm of particle swarm optimization and a novel local search strategy has been proposed to select a set of prominent features. To this aim, features are divided into two categories based on the extension rate and the relationship between the output and the local search strategy to increase the convergence speed. The first group features have more similarity to class and less similarity to other features, and the second is redundant and less relevant features. Accordingly, a local operator is added to the particle swarm optimization algorithm to reduce redundant features and keep relevant ones among each solution. The aim of this operator leads to enhance the convergence speed of the proposed algorithm compared to other algorithms presented in this field. Evaluation of the proposed solution and the proposed statistical test shows that the proposed approach improves different classification criteria of multi-label classification and outperforms other methods in most cases. Also in cases where achieving higher accuracy is more important than time, it is more appropriate to use this method.

Cost efficiency measures the cost of resource by output production. While conventional cost efficiency models set targets separately for each DMU, There are cases where the Central decision making is seeking the above targets, and at the same tries to obtain the target of Min cost efficiency for the total consumption. In this paper we consider that there is a centralized decision maker (DM). In such case, the DM has an interest in minimizing the cost efficiency of individual units at the same time it wants that total input consumption is reduced or output production is increase. We proposed new centralized resource cost efficiency model measurement on the base of Farrell cost efficiency model and Centralized resource allocation of Lozano and Villa model that will reduce resource allocation total cost efficiency, however it is possible for some inputs to increase. The preferences and advantages of this model are present some examples.

The development of electric vehicles (EVs) will increase power transmitted through the distribution grid. Such an effect leads to accelerated aging in grid equipment, including pole-top distribution transformers. In the form of preventive and corrective measures, it is possible to centrally manage the charging operations of a group of electric vehicles connected to a specific pole-top transformer (through the distribution system operator or an independent aggregator). This paper presents a centralized model to co-optimize transformer loss-of-life with benefits for charging and discharging management of consumers' electric vehicles. The proposed model is compared to the decentralized model, in which EV owners optimize their benefits without considering the damages to the transformers. The centralized and decentralized strategies were applied to a small local grid with a maximum number of 6 EVs connected to a local pole-top transformer and implemented and solved using GAMS software. The results show the benefits of the centralized strategy in balancing the grid assets, while consumers' arbitrage benefits are slightly reduced.

The long-term political conflict in Afghanistan over the acquisition of power reached its peak in 2022 with the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban's resumption of power. However, to find the roots of the many causes of this event, we must consider the geographical and ethnic-racial features of Afghanistan, along with the efforts of the modern governments of this country in the direction of nation-state building in the context of political history, as well as the role of neighbors and regional and extra-regional powers. In addition, centralized/decentralized and federal/non-federal governance models should also be discussed in theory and practice. In this article, an attempt is made to answer this question: why can the governance model based on centralized federalism be a desirable political solution to end the long-term power conflict in Afghanistan? According to the research hypothesis, due to the mosaic fabric of society in Afghanistan and the preference of ethnic tendencies over national tendencies and interests, the model of federalism and at the same time the existence of a powerful central federal government can be presented as a desirable political solution. The research results that the factors of the fall and collapse of the Afghan government were the high level of government concentration, the lack of attention to the participation of political groups and ethnic groups in power, and the lack of use of the capacities of local governments.

Purpose: The paper addresses the star network structures with centralized management and provides models for evaluating the performance of such structures. Despite the wide range of applications and importance, such structures have not been studied in data envelopment analysis before. Methodology: The Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method is used for modeling the problem, and a two-level method for efficiency evaluation is proposed. Findings: The proposed models are developed in both multiplicative and envelopment forms. The required formulas for efficiency decomposition and benchmarking are provided. Some results are proved by mathematical discussions and numerical experimentation. Originality/Value: The star structure is seen in many real-world applications. A new method for modelling and evaluation of such structures is introduced and established. The proposed technique, discussions and analytical examinations have a significant contribution to the field of data envelopment analysis and its applications.

In this article, we , rst survey the relationship between Lozano and Villa's centralized resource allocation (CRA) and Mar-Molinero's simpli, ed models. Then, we show how to obtain an opti-mal solution to the CRA model via the simpli, ed model. Moreover, we propose a novel model by simplifying phase II of Lozano and Villa's model. This proposed model determines a peer e, cient unit for each decision making unit (DMU) through some simple computations. The proposed simpli, ed models help us to clarify some ambiguities in the CRA method and propose some solutions to solve them. Considering the importance of target setting in the management, we formulate an-other new model such that by preserving the aim of the CRA model, also projects DMUs onto e, cient frontier according to desirable target as much as possible. The proposed model is illustrated by using a data set of earlier literature.

Purpose: Development planning in Iran has a history, but still not much progress has been made in terms of balanced development in the country. The aim of the current research was to examine the country's centralized planning system, to analyze it by taking its weaknesses and challenges into account, and finally, to provide a solution. Methodology: This research examined how programs and other high-level documents dealt with the issue of centralized planning. Using the descriptive-analytical method, this research aimed to evaluate, combine, and provide a solution for centralized planning based on a systematic review of sources. Findings: The results of the research show that changing the existing path and moving towards reducing the existing gaps requires serious changes in the mindset of centralized planning and should take a course of decentralized planning, regionalism, and multiplicity of factors. Also identifying the challenges of centralized planning in Iran can help the policy makers and policy implementers to pay attention to the mentioned challenges in formulating and implementing development plans so that they may face fewer problems during the implementation phase. Originality: The use of the qualitative method and a wide range of data sources provides a new classification of the challenges of centralized programs in Iran, which covers different dimensions of policy implementation. The present research has been able to propose a defensible theoretical basis for planning in the administrative system in the development program in Iran and to help improve and promote development policy and planning.

Ontology is the main infrastructure of the Semantic Web which provides facilities for integration, searching and sharing of information on the web. Development of ontologies as the basis of semantic web and their heterogeneities have led to the existence of ontology matching. By emerging large-scale ontologies in real domain, the ontology matching systems faced with some problem like memory consumption. Therefore, partitioning the ontology was proposed. In this paper, a new clustering method for the concepts within ontologies is proposed, which is called SeeCC. The proposed method is a seeding-based clustering method which reduces the complexity of comparison by using clusters’ seed. The SeeCC method facilitates the memory consuming problem and increases their accuracy in the large-scale matching problem as well. According to the evaluation of SeeCC's results with Falcon-AO and the proposed system by Algergawy accuracy of the ontology matching is easily observed. Furthermore, compared to OAEI (Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative), SeeCC has acceptable result with the top ten systems.