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This paper investigates the quantitative Effects of ECO Trade agreement(ECOTA) implementation on trade development of Iran. For this purpose, the amount of tariff reduction effects on Iran’s exports(to) or its imports( from) ECO members is estimated and analyzed. The results indicate that with implementation of tariff rate reduction in ECOTA framework, Iran’s exports to ECO countries in 2008 relative to base year(2003) will increase about 1.27 million U.S. dollars( only to Pakistan). Also, Eco members’ imports from Iran will not be substituted by imports out of region. A review of ECO members with reference to taking effect them from ECOTA implementation means that except for Pakistan and Uzbekistan, None of them are obliged to tariff reduction up to 10% marginal rate. On the other hand, Iran’s tariff rate reduction in the ECOTA framework results in increasing 18.99 million U.S. dollars in Iran’s imports from ECO countries. Regarding a substitution-price elasticity near to zero for Iran’s imports from ECO countries and despite of discriminatory tariff reduction of imports from these countries, Iran will not substitute the imports originating from ECO by importing from other countries out of region. Indeed, an 18.2 percent tariff rate reduction in Iran’s imports from ECO will result in 1.6 percent increase in total imports from these countries.

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Cooperation among human beings have existed in different forms from past centuries till now. The modern cooperatices have been formed in response to disorders due to the occurrence of industrial revolution. Inefficiency of market and government for various reasons, justifies the formation of the third sector of economy (including cooperatives). This paper aims to answer the following questions:What are the reasons for the formation of cooperatives? What is the thire sector of economy? What are the roles of cooperatives in macroe conomy?

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Aims: The spread of the Corona pandemic has affected the status of companies involved in information and communication technology. This study aimed to investigate individuals’ subjective perspectives on the use of ICT (online businesses, virtual meetings, e-learning, and generally the role and impact of cyberspace) and finally evaluate people’s willingness to pay.
Materials & Methods: In this study, a conditional logit model was used. The required information was collected through a field survey by completing a questionnaire from 384 respondents of Tehran citizens in 2021.
Findings: Based on the information from the questionnaires filled, more than 75% of the respondents rated the use of cyberspace capabilities for encountering Corona disease as moderate and high. The result of estimating people’s willingness to pay for the feature of “use of information and communication technology” in the present study was 5600000 Rials.
Conclusion: Considering the capabilities of this technology and its position among the people, it is necessary to put on the agenda ICT penetration expansion and planning to make maximum use of its capabilities in similar pandemics and crises.
 

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In this paper, we try to analyze the effects of oil boom and management of oil revenues by government in a sustainable manner on optimal path of Iranian macroeconomic variables by designing a dynamic computable general equilibrium (DCGE) model. This paper considers several scenarios of utilizing oil revenues in terms of allocating these revenues between savings in the form of oil fund on the one hand and consumption of oil revenues on the other hand. The results show that the a 50 percent increase in world oil price leads to higher optimal level of GDP, but the level of GDP excluding oil exports is reduced. According to the results, the long-term reaction of Iranian economy in the face of permanent shocks of oil price is consistent with the theory of Dutch disease. Due to the Dutch disease, production factors are decreased in tradable sectors and increased in oil and non-tradable sectors. However, the increase in employment in the oil and non-tradable sectors will not compensate for the fall of employment in the tradable sectors, thus total employment will decline. The analysis of oil revenue management shows that saving oil revenue in an oil fund leads to higher level of total consumption and gross domestic product in the long run. Saving oil revenues in an oil fund not only ensures precautionary measures against the so-called Dutch Disease syndrome, but also leads to increase in total employment.

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Hexapod walking robots can be employed for both walking and manipulation purposes. When manipulating, they have 6 degrees of freedom for top platform, high rigidity, high load capacity, high speed, and accuracy. On the other hand, it is very well known that they have limited workspace when they are fixed in place for manipulation. Designing a hexapod robot resulting in a maximized workspace can greatly affect the efficiency of the robot when manipulating. Since radially symmetric hexapod walking robots can be modeled as three 2-RPR planar parallel mechanisms, we have used the methods and calculations that used in this kind of mechanism for designing a radially symmetric hexapod walking robot. In this paper, after a thorough review on existing methods for calculating and improving 2-RPR planar parallel mechanism workspace, an algorithm is presented, which results in a maximized reachable workspace. The merit of the method is that there is no need to calculate the workspace volume when maximizing the workspace volume. Also, following this algorithm is necessary for design of the maximized-workspace robot. In other words, the output of the presented optimization algorithm is a set of robot kinematic parameters, which guarantees the maximized volume of the robot’s reachable workspace.

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Optimal performance of an economic system depends on the presence of efficient, strong, and supplementary real and financial sectors. Working together of them is necessary and sufficient condition for the survival of the economic system in general. This study aims to explain the impact of transaction cost on financial development for OPEC members during 1990-2012. In the present study, the effect of transaction costs on financial development is estimated by an econometric model according to Baltagi et al (2007). In this regard, the index of the banking sector efficiency (private credits) is used to explore the development of the banking sector, and stock market turnover ratio (in percent) and Total Value (of shares) Traded (TVT)/GDP (in percent) is used to study the development of the non-banking sector. Explanatory variables include the transaction costs, the government size, the per capita income, and degree of openness of economy. The estimation results using Panel Data indicate that the transaction costs affect financial development significantly; and the reduced transaction costs result in increasing financial development. With regard to property rights, we conclude that guaranteed property rights raise the financial development. Also, per capita income and government size have positive and negative relationships with financial development, respectively.

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This paper proposes a new inexpensive soft force sensor suitable for soft robotics applications that require high flexibility and wide range of sensing area. All Hall Effect sensors developed so far use a Hall Effect sensor to detect the magnetic field of a piece of solid magnet. The proposed force sensor in this paper uses a Hall Effect sensor to detect the magnetic flux density change induced by aligned magnetic powder blended with silicone rubber when a normal force is applied. The sensor is designed and tested with different magnetic powder density and sensor dimensions to achieve an optimum design in sensitivity as well as linearity. The experimental results show that different force measurement range with specific desired sensitivity can be achieved by adjusting certain physical properties of the sensor. This is a useful feature for lots of soft sensing elements in today's applications requiring more compliance and reliable sensors, especially in soft robotics applications.

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Motor units’ malfunction, which happens due to stroke, often affects patients’ hand motion and subsequently restricts their daily activities and social participation. All these factors reduce the patient’s life quality. Therefore, finding a solution to overcome these limitations and improving hand function seems to be valuable. So far, many efforts have been done to design and develop different types of rehabilitation systems. Among all these systems, soft systems have attracted great attention due to their light weight, flexibility, safe interaction and affordability. The goal of this study is to fabricate a soft rehabilitation glove for hand function retrieval so that patients can perform rehabilitation exercises individually. The rehabilitation system presented here includes two different control modes including on/off and proportional modes. Each of them is selected based on patients’ needs. For verification purposes, trajectories of the finger tips were obtained in two modes: “using the glove” and “without using the glove”. Results showed that trajectories of the finger tips in the "using the glove" mode follow a proper path for the user’s digits.
 

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The economic structure in oil-dependent countries is different from other countries. The human development index (HDI) may increase due to rising oil rents and subsequent increases in per capita income, but there may be no significant improvement in other indicators (literacy rate and life expectancy). The improper injection of oil rents into the country's budget without investing in manufacturing, agriculture and services, whether domestically or abroad, leads to the Dutch disease and “resource curse”. Bilateral official development assistance (BODA) from the members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) can have a positive impact on human development without having a negative impact on various economic and social aspects. In this regard, this study examines the impact of BODA on human development using a Panel-Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (Panal-FMOLS) model in selected countries (Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Yemen, Jordan, Azerbaijan and Georgia from Southwest Asia, and Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar from Southeast Asia) during 1999-2018. The results indicate that BODA and health expenditure have positive and significant effects on HDI. The findings also indicate a significant negative impact of oil rent, population growth rate and unemployment rate on HDI. The effect of personal remittances is different in the two samples, so that these funds have negative impact on HDI in the Southwest Asia and a positive effect on HDI in the Southeast Asia.

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Along with the increased trade integration of countries and the expansion of international production fragmentation, Global Value Chains (GVCs) amount to a huge part of trade today, and participation in a network of trade partners at downstream and upstream of the value chains brings about considerable potentials such as the improvement of the flow of knowledge and more advanced production technologies and techniques, particularly for developing countries. It would not be unexpected for GVCs and participating in them from an environmental aspect to have potential benefits for countries as well.
In this regard, the present study discusses the role that GVCs play in countries' environmental performance. For this purpose, a sample of 65 developing and 36 developed countries was investigated using spatial panel data econometrics, conditional convergence, spatial auto-correlation, and GVCs participation spillover and direct impacts for countries in the form of south-south, north-south, and north-north bilateral added-value trade. The results indicated that there was spatial auto-correlation and conditional convergence based on GVCs for all countries although they are more intense in the case of north-north trade in developed countries. Besides, participation in GVCs has spillover impacts on the trading partner countries if developed countries are included in the bilateral value-added trade but this impact is not statistically acceptable in south-south trade of developing countries according to estimations. Thus, establishing trading relations with developed countries through GVCs is a potentially beneficial policy to improve developing countries’ environmental performance.

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The present paper attempts to estimate the relationship between labor productivity and health, technological progress and education, using panel data observing 57-nation Orgamization of Islamic Coopeation, OIC over the period of 1995-2009. A two-step procedure was used with the first involving an estimate of labor productivity based on observations in the  OPEC, GCC and ECO member countries and also African nations within the Islamic countries.  The second step involved an estimate of the effect on labor productivity of health, technological progress and education. Our findings indicate that labor productivities in Islamic countries with some exceptions on an average are above 3 with the highest of 12 belonging to Azerbaijan. Exceptions are Somalia and Gabon with negative productivities and Brunei and Cameroun with productivities around one. The only variable influencing labor productivity in the Islamic countries is health with technology and education having no meaningful influence.