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One of the important tasks of social helpers is empowerment of vulnerable groups. One of these vulnerable groups is female household heads. One of the practices that can help empowering of them is to encourage female household heads to financial independence. Entrepreneurship is something that can lead to financial independence of female household heads. Moreover, entrepreneurship can lead to better mental and social health of this vulnerable group. The first step in empowering female household heads through entrepreneurship is to identify their obstacles and entrepreneurship problems. Because by identification of these barriers it can be done more appropriate measures in order to empower them. So, the aim of the present study is to identify entrepreneurship barriers of female household heads covered by Welfare Organization in Tehran. The method of the current study is survey. The statistical population of this research is all female household heads covered by Welfare Organization in Tehran that 350 of them were selected randomly. In order to collect data in this research, researcher-built questionnaire was used. In this research, the face validity and content aspect of the questionnaire were confirmed and reliability coefficient was obtained 0.81 using Cronbach’s alpha indicating desirable reliability of research questionnaire. The questionnaires were completed through self-creativity and then data were analyzed using SPSS software. Among problems that women encountered with them, the first ten ones are respectively the loss of fund to begin a job, existence of strictly official rules, gender discrimination and ignoring the ability of women by the society and responsible organizations, ignoring women in management affairs, over-concern about paying back the loans, emphasis on having personal fund instead of borrowing it from others, loss of pawn in order to get a loan, lack of proper support by government and governmental organizations, few facilities to begin a job by sponsor organizations, and unsuitable behavior of some organizations due to promotion of male-dominating in the society that statistically meaningful difference in prioritizing of these barriers was seen (p<0.05). Considering the findings of the current research, the programs in order to support female household heads economically and special facilities for them can provide their entrepreneurship basis. Also, gender discriminations against women especially female household heads can be decreased through acculturating using media and national media. The findings of the current research can be useful for social helpers, sponsor organizations and policymakers in direction of empowering the female household heads.

Tropical timber trade has a vital part in the socio-economic improvement of Malaysia. It has been the main exporters of high quality tropical timber products to the world market. International trade in timber products is organized and structured by numerous trade dealings. There is increasing distress around the effect of non-tariff trade dealings on the global timber products sector. The goal of the study is to estimate the impacts of non-tariff trade hurdles to timber trade. The methodology employed in this study includes econometric analysis using spatial equilibrium model. The spatial equilibrium analysis uses a comprehensive econometric model, and the Timber Trade Model (TTM), based on the Price Endogenous Linear Programming System (PELPS) framework. The analysis started by a scenario from the year 2008, and the projections to 2020. The projections show that non-tariff barriers are created to be fewer common than tariffs but have comparable or better combined effects on trade, production, producer revenues, consumer expenditures and value added as tariffs. This study shows the importance of analysing non-tariff barriers to timber trade strategy and the necessity for enduring widespread trade liberalization.

Seeker optimization algorithm (SOA), a novel heuristic population-based search algorithm, is utilized in this paper to solve different economic dispatch (ED) problems of thermal power units. In the SOA, the act of human searching capability and understanding are exploited for the purpose of optimization. In this algorithm, the search direction is based on empirical gradient by evaluating the response to the position changes and the step length is based on uncertainty reasoning by using a simple fuzzy rule. The effectiveness of the algorithm as tested on two large-scale test power systems to solve the ED problems. The results obtained by the SOA are compared to the other different algorithms published in the recent literatures to establish its superiority.

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Table of contents for the month of November 2013

Table of contents for the month of October 2012

Biological responses of cells to visible and near IR laser radiation occur due to physical and / or chemical changes in photo acceptor molecules, component of respiratory chains in mitochondria. As result of the photo excitation of electronic states, the follows of physical and /or chemical changes can occurs alteration of redox properties and acceleration of electron transfer, changes in biochemical activity due to local transient heating of chromospheres. Different reaction channels can be activated to achieve the photo biological macro effects. The aim of the study was: 1- to evaluate the effect of low level laser therapy (LLLT) on increasing the response of immune system by stimulating the lymph nodules action in order to inhabit cancer cells activity which leads to decrease the tumor size in diseased mice without using drugs. 2-to verify the effect of Low Level Laser (LLL) on the lymph nodules bio stimulation in case of disease by using different duration times with at the same area in each irradiation with the same power densities.

Robbery is a kind of crime which not only jeopardizes citizens’ financial security in a society but their psycho security as well. This paper studiesrobbery in the city of Yasuj which seeks to find out the reasons and factors leading to the committing of this crime. Some of the theories, which bore criminological and sociological similarity to each other, are stated and then correlated with the obtained data. The results show that the cultural data did not have significant influence on the committing of robbery in the city of Yasuj, although factors such as education, a feature of culture, were considered influential. What is noteworthy to mention is that all factors being studied had more or less some kind of influence on robbery.

The diameter distribution models of a natural stand in Shasha forest reserve (1.44ha permanent sample plots), South West Nigeria, were modeled with Beta distribution function. The data consisted of dbh measurement of all the trees with dbh ? 10cm. The data set for 1960 was used to model the diameter distribution while 1976 data set was used for model validation which should not be significance to the observed values. Simple linear regression equation was used to fit the Beta function/models. The best model from all the parameters was selected based on least values of standard deviation error, significance and high coefficient of determination. The result revealed that 68 tree species were currently available in the study area. The maximum dbh was observed in 1960 data set (164.91cm) while the least was observed in 2011 data set (81cm). The best model fit was (a+b) = 0.80lnDq – 200.79 (R2 = 61.31%, SE = 24.78 and p = 0.0003). The results of the models validation revealed that there were no significant differences between the observed and the predicted value of the parameters. Models developed are therefore recommended for application in the projection of diameter distribution for proper management.

We are very happy to announce that from 7th March 2013, Mr. Ahmed Hashim Mohaisen Al-Yasari has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Physics. Mr. Ahmed Hashim Mohaisen Al-Yasari is currently working as College of Education, University of Babylon, Hilla, Iraq. The appointment of Mr. Ahmed Hashim Mohaisen Al-Yasari as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal. Please send any expressions of interest to elixirpublishers@gmail.com. Sincerely Editor-in-Chief