In this paper, I address the issue of the possible applicability of the ideas of Karl R. Popper’s social and political philosophy in the contemporary political life of postcolonial countries. Through reference to the reception of Popper’s philosophy in Central and Eastern Europe, I argue that Popper’s writings were effective in catalysing the political wholesale transformation by undermining Marxists’ pretensions to scientific status rather than through his anti-utopian and anti-revolutionary political recommendations. In the context of attempts to apply Popper’s ideas in postcolonial countries, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, I claim that the influence of Popper’s social thought on the politics of those countries may not be as effective as expected or desired.

Research Problem: Considering Users' interaction with a space to predict its future function is a key issue in the architectural design process. In this regard, a well-known approach is a scenario-based design. This approach is used in software design, product design, and graphics to predict aspects of the User experience interacting with a system. However, it has no clear application in architectural design. Nevertheless, Users often have an uncertain position in the architectural design process. Users are rarely consulted, probably because architects do not have direct access to them and their views. Architects often overlook the diversity and spatial experience of Users. When visualizing future Users, they use their personal experiences as the main reference. Research Question: This study seeks to answer the following questions: "What components are needed to write a scenario in architectural design? " And "How can a framework be proposed for the scenario-based design process in architecture based on User experience inspired by methods developed in other design disciplines? " Research Method: This is a qualitative research that uses a case study. In theoretical discussions, drawing upon documentary research methods, scenario components and the concept of "scenario-based design" in architecture were explained. A series of field studies were then conducted to identify the User experience to develop a scenario-based design framework based on User experience. For this purpose, a non-profit girls' secondary school in Tehran was selected as a case study. Data were collected through participant observation, activities and events, and semi-structured interviews with various school Users. For interviews, purposive sampling and theoretical saturation criteria were used. The text of these interviews was then analyzed using quantitative content analysis to extract the influential components in the Users' spatial experience. By coding the text of the written interviews, i. e., the school Users' narratives of their spatial experience in the building, six main categories were finally obtained. The components were physical-spatial (spatial quality), physical-functional (Users' functional requirements), safety, physiological-biological, psychological (individual and social), and cultural-religious (culture and religious ethics). Then, the personal characteristics of the representative of each group of Users (including age, gender, profession, needs) were compiled along with the abstract of the narratives of their spatial experience, in the form of a series of sheets called "User Persona Sheet. " The Most Important Results and Conclusion: The findings showed that scenario-based design in architecture is possible by using various methods in navigating Users' spatial experience in existing buildings of the same type, addressing the current and desired functional scenarios of the spaces. In response to Q1, transferring the scenario components in other design disciplines to architectural design, helped identify the components needed for scenario writing in architecture. These were the User, the User's desires, the location, the User's activities, the events, the time period of the activities, the time sequence and the relationship of the activities to the spaces (scenario plot), and the final product (architectural space). The "User Persona" sheets provided us with the information required to take the above steps. Q2 relates to the framework and steps of scenario writing in the architectural design process. The first step involves appointing a representative from each User group and setting up a "User persona sheet" for each of them containing personal details, needs, a brief account of everyday space experiences, and their view of the desired spaces. In the second step, the current function scenarios of the spaces were illustrated in a format similar to a "storyboard. " To this end, it was attempted to represent the narrative of a User's typical day-to-day activities along with his or her key explanations in a chronological hierarchy. In the third step, the scenarios of the desired function of spaces were carried out. Here, according to the current function scenarios and the Users' views of the desired situation, an idea was developed about the desired future scenarios of the spaces, containing design ideas. So far, everything has been done based on the spatial experiences of Users. In buildings such as schools, with management systems, goals, policies, and norms, a "normative scenario" is added to the pre-proposed scenarios. It reflects the norms, rules of behavior, organizational and common goals of all User groups, affecting the architectural spaces.

Efficient distribution of service requests between fog and cloud nodes considering User mobility and fog nodes’ overload is an important issue of fog computing. This paper proposes a heuristic method for task placement considering the mobility of Users, aiming to serve a higher number of requested services and minimize their response time. This method introduces a formula to overload prediction based on the entry-exit ratio of Users and the estimated time required to perform current requests that are waiting in the queue of a fog node. Then, it provides a solution to avoid the predicted overloading of fog nodes by sending all delay-tolerant requests in the overloaded fog node’s queue to the cloud to reduce the time required for servicing delay-sensitive requests and to increase their acceptance rate. In addition, to prevent requests from being rejected when the mobile User leaves the coverage area of the current fog node, the requests in the current fog node’s queue will be transferred to the destination fog node. Simulation results indicate that the proposed method is effective in avoiding the overloading of the fog nodes and outperforms the existing methods in terms of response time and acceptance rate.

User experience is an important issue in the success of commercial mobile applications. Information architecture is a discipline which can be used to design User interface in order to achieve desirable User experience based on User and content analysis. In this research, the impact of information architecture on the software usability is evaluated by a quantitative approach. By selecting a mobile application, logging the Users’ interaction automatically, and analyzing the log, usage problems are discovered. Afterward, navigation system is redesigned by using information architecture. Then, the usability of the new version of the application is evaluated. In this experience, 8 metrics are measured in 11 functionalities for each version of the application. Comparing the results show that among 88 measurements, 74 have been improved, 10 have been decreased and 4 have been unchanged. The most improved metrics are time to reach to the functionality, User extra activities and function finding.

Creating a great User experience is one of the main goals of online stores, which actually enables them to create a lasting competitive advantage. The User experience is also one of the valuable and innovative sources of information for designing recommender systems. Given the competitive world of commerce and the high similarity of goods and services, and considering the important role of the User experience and actually creating a positive impression in the User's mind, this study srecommender systems in in online environments are done. The methodology of the present study is synthetic. In the qualitative section, 20 experts were selected through semi-structured interviews through purposeful judgment sampling. Then based on qualitative data content analysis, the initial research model was presented. In the quantitative part of the study, the statistical population of the study included all Users and customers of the Digikala store that used its services in March and April 2019. For this purpose, 384 samples were selected by available sampling method. LISREL software was used to analyze the data in a small section and the hypotheses were confirmed. The results indicate that there are five main categories of background factors including perceived impact experience, perceived ease of experience, perceived quality experience, perceived support experience, and perceived external experience. Perceived attitudes, perceived value, perceived trust, and perceived satisfaction were also presented as consequences of the User experience of the recommender system in online environments.