In the current competitive environment, managers have been making attempts to convert organizations under their supervision into competitive and responsive through creating capability of timely delivery of quality products and services. In line with this, maintenance as a system plays an important role in achieving these goals. The maintenance strategy selection is a kind of multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem, which requires considering a large number of complex factors as multiple evaluation criteria. A robust MCDM method should consider the interactions among criteria. The analytic network process (ANP) is a relatively new MCDM method, which can deal with all kinds of interactions systematically. Moreover, the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) not only can convert the relations between cause and effect of criteria into a visual structural model, but also can be used as a way to handle the inner dependences within a set of criteria. Hence, this paper proposes an effective solution based on a combined ANP and DEMATEL approach to help vehicle companies that need to evaluate and select maintenance strategies.

Intellectual capital is the main property of any organization in knowledge-based economics. Knowledge is the fundamental principle of intellectual capital. Hence, it is the core of organizational capabilities. The aim of this study is to survey the relationship between dimensions of intellectual capital and knowledge creation in the headquarters of National Gas Corporation of Iran in the year 2010. The research method is descriptive – survey and follows practical objective. The research population consists of the formal staffs of the Corporation (managers, senior staff and other staff). We selected 261 people from the population randomly. We also used a reliable and valid questionnaire to gather data. We also used informative factor analysis to examine goodness of the model and we used SEM by Lisrel to confirm or reject the hypothesis in this study. The results show that all dimensions of intellectual capital have a significant impact on dimensions of knowledge creation, except for the effects of structural capital on knowledge combination as well as relational capital on knowledge internalization.

Today, with ever-increasing competition in global economic conditions, the necessity of effective implementation of strategy map has become an inevitable and necessary. The strategy map represents a general and structured framework for strategic objectives and plays an important role in forming competitive advantages for organizations. It is important to find important factors influencing strategy map and prioritize them based on suitable factors. In this paper, we propose an integration of BSC and Fuzzy DEMATEL technique to rank different items influencing strategy of a production plan. The proposed technique is implemented for real-world case study of glass production.

The world trade has tremendous growth in marine transportation. This paper studies yard crane scheduling problem between different blocks in container terminal. Its purpose is to minimize total travel time of cranes between blocks and total delayed workload in blocks at different periods. In this way the problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming (MIP) model. The block pairs between which yard cranes will be transferred, during the various periods, is determined by this model. Afterwards the model is coded in LINGO software, which benefits from branch and bound algorithm to solve. Computational results determine the yard cranes movement sequence among blocks to achieve minimum total travel time for cranes and minimum total delayed workload in blocks at different planning periods. Also the results show capability and adequacy of the developed model.

Aggressive behavior has many bad effects on people & apos; s health care and lifestyle and any attempt to find the main issues influencing aggressive behavior among young students could help setup appropriate programs to control and possibly reduce aggressive attitudes. The proposed study of this paper performs an empirical study to find out the relationship between aggressive behavior and other important factors such as gender, age, etc. The survey uses a well-known questionnaire introduced by Buss and Perry (The aggression questionnaire, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 452-459, 1992). The survey distributes 500 questionnaire consists of different questions based on Likert scale among 250 female and 250 male students. The questionnaire consists of various questions including anger, physical aggression, verbal aggression and hostility. The results indicate that while there is no meaningful difference between aggression attitudes of female and male students (with p-value & LT; 0.001), the aggressive attitudes increases among older male students but this aggressive reduces among female students as they get older.

The present research purpose is applying a compose method from DEA and AHP for removing this technique deficiency on assessing. For this reason, a compose method on basis of unsubjective double comparisons matrix has been used. At research process, after specifying the input and output variables and also a proper model for DEA, computational research method are dismounted at two stages: At the first stage, DEA model, is dismounted for two-by –two of items (branches), regardless to other items. At the second stage, double items comparisons matrix is provided from first stage results, that is performed total rating by resolving a unit – level AHP model. For this purpose, for dismounting this technique, we have attempted to assess rivet producer units efficiency, at one of the greatest industrial units in Iran. Results indicate unit number 3 with efficiency amount 0.12622 has allocated the highest rate to own and unit number 1 and 2 with efficiency 0.12404 has allocated the least rates to own.

Earth subsidence has been one of the important issues jeopardizing environment and there are many studies, which blame shortage of underground water resources for having uplift and subsidence. However, many argue such conclusion and believe that earth subsidence has been studied in the past without considering the changes in the hill over a long period. In this study, we use SAR interferometry study to investigate earth subsidence in dessert areas of Esfahan, Yazd and Ardakan, located in central part of Iran. The results indicate that there are more important issues affecting subsidence such as the uplift in the hills located the desert area. The results of the survey based on SAR interferometry reveals that subsidence occurs with the uplift in the adjacent hills, simultaneously called Soft isostasy in geomorphology. In other words, the subsidence is more associated with the movement of the surface of the desert to reach equilibrium than shortage of underground water resources. There is an equilibrium line between the uplift and subsidence where is changes of the surface tends to zero.

Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world and a major driver of growth for developed countries. To maximize the tourism sector & apos; s economic benefits‚ tourism development‚ planning and strategies not only have to focus on increasing demand and supply‚ but also they must concentrate on raising the level of value retention and on value creation and value co-creation within the sectors. Serious policy in one of these sectors may threat the whole tourism value chain. This makes analysis of the sector complex but crucial as it could be the catalyst for wide spread reforms. To offer a better tourism product, one should understand the sources of critical factors (ie: environmental, industry and organizational factors) for competing either domestically or internationally. Comparative and competitive advantages, information and communication systems and E-tourism, knowledge of value and value chain (identifying and analyzing the specific activities through which it can create value for its customers) all are the perquisite for value creation and value co-creation (the source of value lies in the personalized experiences that are unique to each individual customer). To achieve these, special attention must be devoted to strategic management, planning and society, in order to satisfy all stakeholders & apos; expectation. Based on the above paradigm a model for value creation in tourism is proposed in this paper. It is hoped that this study could drive destinations to create and co- create the values that makes a unique and memorable experience for each tourist.

One of the necessary actions in many organizations is to reduce the number of workers in an attempt to restructure business activities. However, layoff could have negative consequences since many employees may decide to leave since they lose their tolerance. The layoff must be accompanied with some supportive plans to reduce stress among the remaining workers and increase their commitment for long-term work. The present study of this paper considers the effects of layoff on job satisfaction and commitment among the remaining employees of a detergent producer unit. The results indicate that a good supportive program including wage increase, family support, health care plans, etc. could significantly improve employee long-term commitments and it leads to job satisfaction.

Social welfare plays an important role on helping needy people build their future. There is no doubt that a good social welfare program in any country could indirectly reduce rates of crimes and violence. In this study, we examine the quality of life between welfare receivers and ordinary people. The proposed study of this paper designs a questionnaire consists of nine questions and distribute between two groups of 50 people. The questions are based on Likert scale from very low to very high and the feedbacks are analyzed using some statistical tests. The results indicate that typical ordinary people have better life style in terms of nutrition, healthcare, housing and shelter, education, employment, income, social relationships, marital status, entertainment than welfare receivers do.