مطالب

Climate change is significantly affecting the livelihoods and health of human societies. During the Holocene, climatic events have occurred repeatedly. These events typically have affected large regions between 100 and 600 years. Paleoclimate studies of the Northern Hemisphere have identified climatic events of 9.2, 8.2, 5.2, 4.2, 3.2 ka BP, Roman warming, the early medieval cooling, medieval warming, and Little Ice Age. Also, by adapting the archaeological studies and the paleoclimate research of Iran, other periods of climate change such as 7.5, 7, 6.2 and 4.8 ka BP can be introduced. Due to the vastness and geographical diversity of Iran, the impact of each of these events in different parts of the country has been different, but, in general, during droughts related to climate change, semi-arid to arid regions of Iran have been more vulnerable, and therefore, people were using a variety of strategies to resilience and adapt, such as changing subsistence patterns, managing water resources, and migrating. However, in some periods of climate change, the effects of climatic hazards have been such that it has led to the cultural, socio-economic and political decline of societies.

Purpose- The implementation of participatory projects aiming socio-economic empowerment and environmental sustainability is one of the sustainable management strategies in arid rural areas across the world in the recent decades. This study was conducted to answer two questions: What have been the characteristics and achievements of participatory development and community-based projects in rural areas located within the critical centers of Sistan, Jazmourian, and Rigan? How is a process model for rural development planning consistent with the geography of aforementioned areas? Design/methodology/approach- The present study is descriptive-analytical and the research process includes the analysis of the goals and final achievements of participatory plans in Rigan (RFLDL), the progress and development Plan in Ghaleh-Ganj, the Carbon Sequestration plan in Jazmourian and Lashar, the Menarid Project in Sistan, "Village without unemployed" project, SAHAB community-based projects, and ASEMAN project from Barekat Foundation in Sistan region. The required data consisted of the performance statistics of the above-mentioned projects, and the required analysis was conducted on the dat. Finding- Each of these projects has positive achievements in accordance with its short-term goals. Although it is quantitatively desirable, they failed to continue to operate in a regular and stable planning process in rural areas. Execution of a process model for rural development planning requires institutional transformations and the establishment of an integrated facility direction system for the economic infrastructure of rural areas (with a focus on the value chain) and a series of previous and subsequent jobs in each chain.  Research limitations/implications- Among the main limitations of reformation in the programs and continuous learning from past experiences are the effort of conductors in charge of implementing rural development projects to indicate the expected achievements by relying on seemingly favorable statistics with false documentation, and the weakness or lack of a public oversight system on the actual achievements of projects. Real decentralization in the country's rural planning system, the establishment of a public oversight system, and a process planning are the best strategies for sustaining local communities.

Scaffolding and shadowing techniques have been shown to improve language learners’ reading comprehension. However, little attention has been paid to the comparative effectiveness of these techniques. This study investigated the effect of three selected scaffolding techniques (peer scaffolding, distributed scaffolding, and reciprocal scaffolding) versus three types of shadowing (complete shadowing, partial shadowing, and interactive shadowing) on L2 reading comprehension. To this end, 120 intermediate level EFL learners (in 6 groups of 20 members each) were selected through convenience sampling from three language institutes in Qazvin. Each group was randomly assigned to one of the shadowing and scaffolding techniques. One way ANOVA and independent samples t-tests were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that among the three scaffolding techniques, distributed scaffolding was the most effective technique on reading comprehension. The most effective technique among shadowing groups was interactive shadowing. A significant difference was also found between the shadowing and scaffolding techniques in favor of scaffolding techniques. These findings may have theoretical and pedagogical implications for researchers, learners, teachers, and syllabus designers.