During the past few years, there has been growing interest to use unified modeling language (UML) to consider the functional requirements. However, lacking a tool to detect the accuracy and the logic of diagrams in this language makes a formal model indispensable. In this study, conversion of primary UML model of a system to a colored Petri net has been accomplished in order to examine the precision of the model. For this purpose, first the definition of priority and implementation tags for UML activity diagram are provided; then it is turned into colored Petri net. Second, the proposed model provides translated tags in terms of net transitions and some monitors are used to control the system characteristics. Finally, an executable model of UML activity diagram is provided so that the designer could simulate the model by using the simulation results to detect and to refine the problems of the model. In addition, by checking the results, we find out the proposed method enhances authenticity and accuracy of early models and the ratio of system validation increases compared with previous methods.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to find the relationship between consumer’s behaviors towards well-known luxury brands in Iranian market. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 250 randomly people who purchase luxury products. The study investigates the effects of three variables including perception value, social normality and need for being exclusive on perception of a brand for motivating customers to purchase luxury products. In addition, the study tries to find out whether customers’ educational backgrounds influence on purchasing luxury products or not. Cronbach alphas are all well above the minimum acceptable level, which validates the survey. Using structural equation modeling, the study confirms all hypotheses of the survey.

During the past two decades, there have been growing interests on developing websites to build a link between various groups of people to share their knowledge such as Google service. This kind of activity helps fast and reliable distribution of knowledge since someone disseminates a question and various people attempt to provide some responses. This paper presents a system dynamic method for investigating the relationships between various components of a benchmark site. The proposed study develops closed loop dynamic among various components of the survey and provides some necessary actions for development of such systems. The results of our survey have indicated that the new forum could end up having significant number of unanswered questions. Therefore, researchers who work for this forum are suggested to increase their skills and their response rates to reduce the rate of unanswered questions.

During the past few years, there have been some evidences to believe that organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) could significantly influence on the success of organizations. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of OCB on human resource management. The proposed study designs a questionnaire and distributes it among some 260 experts who worked for an Iranian auto industry. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale, examines three hypotheses including the relationship between conscientiousness and information quality, courtesy and work efficiency and between civic virtue and work efficiency. Cronbach alphas for Courtesy, Civic virtue and Information Quality are calculated as 0.75, 0.76 and 0.81, respectively. Using structural equation modeling, the study has confirmed existence of positive and meaningful relationships among various components of the survey, which confirms all three hypotheses of the survey.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effect of intellectual capital on firm performance. The proposed study uses two regression models to find out whether there is any meaningful relationship between intellectual capital and Tobin’s Q as well as earnings per share (EPS). To test the research hypothesis, a sample of 19 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2010-2012 based on panel method is chosen. The study uses the method originally proposed by Pulic to measure intellectual capital. The results of the implementation of two regressions analysis indicate that there were not any meaningful relationships between these two components. Therefore, the results indicate that the intellectual capital has no effect on firm performance.

This study examines the impact of corporate governance structure and free cash flow on over-investment on 121 firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2008-2011. To measure over-investment, free cash flow and corporate governance variables based on available information reported on financial statements are gathered and using cross section regression method, different hypotheses of the survey are examined. The results indicate that among corporate governance mechanisms investigated in survey, there is a significant relationship between percentage of non-executive directors and ownership concentration with over-investment. However, there was no meaningful relationship among controlling shareholders and duality with over-investment. Furthermore, a significant relationship between free cash flow and over-investment has been found.

This paper presents an empirical study to investigate the effect of brand equity on customer’s adoption of electronic banking. The proposed study uses a standard questionnaire for measuring brand equity, which consists of five items including brand associate, brand awareness, quality perception and brand loyalty. The study also uses another questionnaire, which measures electronic acceptance and both questionnaires are designed in Likert scale. Cronbach alphas for brand equity and electronic acceptance are measured as 0.83 and 0.75, which are above the acceptance level of 0.70. Therefore, we can confirm the validity of both questionnaires. The study is implemented among 384 regular customers of one of Iranian banks, randomly and using Spearman correlation ratio as well as stepwise regression techniques, the study has detected a positive and meaningful relationship between brand equity and customer’s adoption on electronic banking.

One of the primary duties of the depositary banks is to protect themselves against any possibility of bankruptcy. This requires the identification and measurement of risks, including default risk, which is important given the nature of the activities of banks. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the relationship between default probability and some financial figures including operating cash flow, liabilities and return of equities. The proposed study of this paper uses historical data of twenty-two firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2008-2012. Default probability as the dependent variable is measured by the method developed by Moody’s KMV Company. The study uses linear regression model to examine the relationship between default probability and some independent variables. The results of the present study suggest that there were some reverse relationship between operating cash flow per share, return on equities and default probability. In addition, there was a direct relationship between log facilities and default probability. However, there was not any relationship between net sales and default probability.

The aim of this study is to investigate the changes in gold price and modeling of its return volatility and conditional variance model. The study gathers daily prices of gold coins as the dependent variable and the price of gold in world market, the price of oil in OPEC, exchange rate USD to IRR and index of Tehran Stock Exchange from March 2007 to July 2013 and using ARCH family models and VAR methods, the study analysis the data. The study first examines whether the data are stationary or not and then it reviews the household stability, Arch and Garch models. The proposed study investigates the causality among variables, selects different factors, which could be blamed of uncertainty in the coin return. The results indicate that the effect of sudden changes of standard deviation and after a 14-day period disappears and gold price goes back to its initial position. In addition, in this study we observe the so-called leverage effect in Iran’s Gold coin market, which means the good news leads to more volatility in futures market than bad news in an equal size. Finally, the result of analysis of variance implies that in the short-term, a large percentage change in uncertainty of the coin return is due to changes in the same factors and volatility of stock returns in the medium term, global gold output, oil price and exchange rate fluctuation to some extent will show the impact. In the long run, the effects of parameters are more evident.

This paper investigates the effect of adjusted DuPont ratio and its components on investors’ decisions in short and long term. The primary objective of this study is to find the effect of adjusted DuPont ratio and its components on herding behavior of investors in one and several year period. Hence, 85 corporations as the member of Tehran stock exchange over the period 2006-2011 are selected. In order to recognize the herding, by market index consideration, the herded B and in order to hypothesis validity SPSS software and multivariable linear regression have been used. As the results of this study indicate, the adjusted DuPont ratio and its components have more effect on investors’ decisions in short term but in long the period, the effect of this ratio on herding investors’ behavior are reduced. Furthermore, from the two components of adjusted DuPont ratio, profit margin has more effect on investor & apos; s decisions.