Incentive strategies are used in collaborative user-centric networks, the functioning of which depends on the willingness of users to cooperate. Classical mechanisms stimulating cooperation are based on trust, which allows to set up a reputation infrastructure quantifying the subjective reliance on the expected behavior of users, and on virtual currency, which allows to monetize the effect of p...

A theory is presented which predicts that performance will stabilize at an equilibrium level in a long-term token economy. This prediction is based on the joint consideration of consumption schedules (relationships between income and expenditure) and a hypothesized critical range of savings (a range of savings above which performance deteriorates and below which performance improves). Procedure...

When a firm changes its unique mix of products, markets, and technologies, some of employees’ previously acquired human capital depreciates. As a result, the firm can credibly renegotiate down employees’ quasi rents, which it had promised them as a reward for their human capital investments. We show that linking employees’ pay to total firm value, a widely observed phenonemon in practice, can m...

This paper analyzes the real effects of differences in structures on financial markets, especially concerning quasi-equilibrium unemployment. It argues that a vibrant venture capital market is an important prerequisite for financing structural change and thus for keeping unemployment low in the ongoing transition to the “new economy”. It furthermore points out the crucial importance of extensiv...

Economics-related ICT research has moved from the fringes of the discipline to penetrate all of its branches. It is, therefore, not a separate economics sub-discipline. It is also unlikely to become part of an ‘ICT or Internet Research’ proto-discipline. Instead, it should be seen as only one part of a bigger agenda toward a proper ‘information and knowledge economics’ and possibly a future pro...

Medical philately provides a useful medium for the study of medical history. There are a handful of Iranian stamps which have been issued with a medical theme. This report briefly reviews the history of Iranian medicine through Iranian commemorative postage stamps. Some notable stamps are presented.

BACKGROUND Accurate identification of sheep nematodes is a critical point in epidemiological studies and monitoring of drug resistance in flocks. However, due to a close morphological similarity between the eggs and larval stages of many of these nematodes, such identification is not a trivial task. There are a number of studies showing that molecular targets in ribosomal DNA (Internal transcri...

BACKGROUND Scientific journals are the most credible and updated information resources for valid information in the various fields of science and technology. The present study investigates the status of Iranian scientific journals in disseminating medical information to the world of science. MATERIALS AND METHODS Total 163 Iranian medical journals accredited by national medical journals commi...

Since the advent of Islamic Revolution in 1979 and due to foreign exchange controls by the Central Bank of Iran, the black market value of the Iranian rial had declined substantially as compared to its official value. In several articles published in professional journals I have first identified factors which has caused the rial to decline. I have then investigated the impact on Iranian economy...