---

Citing the "Annual Report of Fragile States Index" provided by the "Peace Fund" from 2006 to 2023, this article argues that Libya was not an example of a failed state at the time of state collapse. Although all governments in the world have a degree of weakness and incapability in providing and realization of their main tasks, Libya's rank during Gaddafi period, compared to other countries, was not a rank that could be considered as an example of a fragile state. The necessity of reforming the produced literature provoked the writer to seek an answer to the question of why the post-Gaddafi government of Libya has moved towards a collapsed government. Prioritizing domestic reasons for this issue over regional and international ones, this article argues that; the government's inability in exclusive use of power; the political role of Islamists in Libyan government; the role of Libyan former officials in the new government; terrorist groups with an Islamist approach such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda; the role of Islam in the laws and political and social life of the country; disagreement over the types of political governmental   structure; disputes related to the electoral system; ways of allocating  the seats of the National Congress to the representatives and the methods of choosing a new body to draft the constitution, are the most important reasons why the Libyan government is moving towards a "collapsed state".

 

---

This paper discusses a comparative study between ISO 900:2000 standards and two groups of total quality management approaches, one proposed by different intelligents such as, Crosby, Deming, etc. and the other by two widely used quality awards namely EFQM and MBNQA. Based on this study seven criteria and their subـcriteria were identified which determines the differences and communalities between ISO 9000:2000 standards and also indicate that these standards comply with a total quality approach. Based on the comparative analysis conducted, two similar instruments in questionnaire with alike content were developed to measure the level of implemention of TQM in the organizations implementing TQM and to collect the views of quality experts respectively. Through statistical tests, reliability and validity including construct validity of the mentioned above instruments were approved by factor analysis. Finally by analyzing the data collected from the two instruments a gap analysis aimed at identifying the differences between what is really done in the organizations and what quality experts believe that should be done was performed. The results of this research can help the organizations of the country in their efforts on implementing TQM.

---

Although biosurfactants have great advantages over chemical surfactants, their wider industrial applications have been constrained by their relatively high production cost. Using renewable, sustainable and cheap substrates such as different industrial by-products and wastes maybe decrease biosurfactant production costs. Since in different countries, there are a variety of by-products and wastes so use of these substrates rely on their types and concentrations in countries. In addition to hydrocarbon compounds, molasses has been considered as a dominant by-product in Iran. In this study, among 16 crude oil degrading isolates, strain Pseudomonas aeruginosa ZN was selected as an efficient biosurfactant producer by screening methods for detection of biosurfactant producing bacteria. For investigation of molasses concentrations effect on bacterial growth and biosurfactant production, a wide range of molasses concentrations from 2-12% (v/v) were used. This strain was able to grow and produce biosurfactant in all range of molasses concentrations while the best concentrations were 4-6%. Also, at the optimum molasses concentration, reduction of surface tension from 70 to 32-34 mN/m was observed. The concnetrations more than these values decreased the growth and production process. Acid precipitation and solvent extract (ethyl acetate: hexane) methods were carried out for recovery of biosurfactant from the culture broth, then results of spraying on developed TLC and staining fermentation broth without bacterial cells showed the two produced biosurfactants were glycolipid.

---

Concrete is the most widely used building material in construction industry worldwide and its constituents are easily accessible everywhere. However, cement industry, as the producer of the primary binder of concrete, is one of the effective sources of environment degradation. Cement production needs extraction of mineral resources and burning fuel and causes extensive greenhouse emission due to disintegration of raw materials. Cement production alone is responsible for 7% of global CO₂ emission with estimated annual growth of 4%. Toward environmental sustainability, one way is partially or totally replacing cement by waste or byproducts of other industries such as fly ash, ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS), waste water, metakaolin, and silica fume. Geopolymer is a cementitious material with comparable characteristics to those of ordinary cement produced by alumina- and silica-rich waste materials. Therefore, it does not require energy-intensive and pollutive calcination process. Geopolymerization is formed by reaction of silica-alumina under an alkaline solution which creates three dimensional Si-O-Al-O polymeric chains to attain compressive strength, compared to the ordinary cement which develops calcium silicate hydrates (C-S-H) as the main adhesive. Extensive research has conducted on geopolymer concrete. However, more investigations are needed to better understand characteristics of geopolymer concrete containing additives. Fibers are proved to have a positive effect on mechanical strength of concrete. As well, fillers such as microsilica can improve mechanical and durability of concrete. Moreover, most studies in this area are focused on fly ash-based geopolymers and the investigations on GGBS-based geopolymer are rare in the literature. In this study, mechanical and durability of GGBS-based geopolymer concrete containing CFRP fibers and microsilica is investigated. Different concrete samples with 0-3% CFRP fibers and 0-10% microsilica are prepared and experimentally tested. Sodium Hydroxide (NH) and Sodium Silicate (NS) solutions are used as alkali activators. 8 M NH as well as NS with 14.7 Na₂O and 29.4 SiO₂are used with the NS/NH ratio of 2.5. Since no standard exists for mix design of geopolymer concrete, proposed mix design by Venkatesan and Pazhani (2015) is used. Alkaline to binder ratio of 0.4 is selected with 430 kg/m³binder.The specimens were tested after 28 days of curing. Next, mechanical and durability tests including compressive strength, tensile strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity, water absorption, RCPT, and acid resistance are conducted on the samples. Also, microstructure of the geopolymer concrete is investigated. Results of experimental tests show that, compressive and tensile strength of geopolymer samples decrease by adding microsilica. However, 5% microsilica is the best value to enhance mechanical properties of geopolymer concrete. On the other hand, microsilica can enhance durability properties of geopolymer concrete so that adding 5% microsilica causes moderate improvement of water absorption and chloride penetration. The greatest impact of microsilica is on acid resistance by which adding 5% microsilica resulted in 67% improvement of compressive strength loss. However, unlike the microsilica, CFRP fibers have detrimental effect on mechanical properties and durability of the geopolymer concrete since adding fibers can yield disruption of concrete integrity .On the other point of view, microstructure study shows that all the specimens exhibit micro cracks that can inversely affect the performance of concrete. Also, SEM images show that there is not a strong bond between CFRP fibers and binder paste which yields lower performance of concrete specimens containing fiber.