desertification is specific phenomenon of arid, semi-arid, dry sub humid regions. this phenomenon has a high rate in developing countries such as iran. the main objective of this research was calibration of imdpa model in abuzeidabad (kashan) region with emphasis on land criteria. imdpa model, introduced by iranian researchers to assess desertification intensity in iran. before application, the...

tourism as a growing industry needs special attention in developing countries. during last decades, nature based tourism has been growing faster than other tourism fields and it seems to grow even faster. ever growing demand for nature based tourism emphasizes the necessity of a holistic planning for preserving environment against degradation. objective of this study is to present a nature base...

A large body of intuitive and analytical models has evolved over the last several decades to assist decision makers (DMs) in enterprise architecture (EA) framework selection. While these models have made great strides in EA framework evaluation, the intuitive models lack a structured framework and the analytical models do not capture intuitive preferences of multiple DMs. Furthermore, crisp dat...

This is an introduction to the special section of JASSS on the above topic. It argues for the importance of qualitative evidence in social science, and particularly in the specification of agent-based models. It ends by suggesting some criteria for judging methods for using qualitative evidence for this purpose.

Goals are not only used to identify desired states or outcomes, but may also be used to derive qualitative preferences between outcomes. We show that Qualitative Preference Systems (QPSs) provide a general, flexible and succinct way to represent preferences based on goals. If the domain is not Boolean, preferences are often based on orderings on the possible values of variables. We show that QP...

Current methods in qualitative physics (QP) sometimes predict behaviors of physical systems that do not correspond to any real-valued solution . The existence of spurious solutions and their origins have been analyzed for the treatment of differential equations [Kuipers 86], [Schmid 88] as well as of simple equations [Struss 87], [Struss 88a] . For the first case, the reason for the prediction ...

Academic and business environments increasingly accept the utility of diverse qualitative research approaches for informing the design, implementation and evaluation of information systems. However, there are concerns that inherent techno-centrism within the IS discipline distorts criteria for choosing and adapting approaches and, significantly, works to marginalise the opportunities qualitativ...

There is more to guidelines for qualitative research reports than that proposed in Smith-Sebasto (2000). Our response to the article illustrates a range of alternativesto the positionand criteria outlined by Smith-Sebasto.We draw on examples from across the wider literature to explore themes and issues regarding the purpose(s) of guidelines, their content and how they are structured. Our core a...