For many years, investors used some basic financial ratios to measure the relative performance of various active industries based on two-digit ISIC classification. However, direct implementation of basic financial figures may not be practical in today & apos; s business environment since investors face with different criteria. The proposed model of this paper uses Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to compare 37 various industries based on different financial figures. We gather the necessary data over the period of 2009-2010 from Tehran Stock Exchange and investigate the data in two stages. In the first stage, we perform fundamental analysis to select the most appropriate firms and the in the second stage, we use TOPSIS to rank selected firms based on different criteria. The results of the study confirm that information and communication technology, which is one of the biggest firms in this exchange is considered as the best option (relative ranking 0.88 in two years) followed by some Cement industry (with relative ranking of 0.26 in 2009 and 0.19 in 2010) and oil refinery units (with relative ranking of 0.23 in 2009 and 0.19 in 2010). The figure also shows that other firms maintain low ratios varied from 0.23 to 0.01. The lowest industry ranking belongs to marine industry.

Branding in food industry has been a major concern among food suppliers. During the past few years, there have been strong competitions among business developers to gain market share through increasing the value of their brand. In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to learn more about the relationship between brand experiences on consumer purchase experiences. The study selects a sample of 206 people who are regular customers of two well-known suppliers, Shahrvand and Hyperstar, in city of Tehran, Iran. Using structural equation modeling, the study examines six hypotheses and the results confirm that an increase on brand loyalty, brand attribute, pricing factors, product performance attributes, brand associate and brand position will increase purchasing intention, significantly.

One of the major challenges facing all of individuals and organizations is decision-making based on the information. The issues of priority about cash flows and accruals data in decision-making process for different groups of financial statement users include investors, creditors, shareholders, directors, etc. one of the issues that has been controversial between accrual and cash accounting advocators for a long time. In this study, we survey the role of accruals and operating cash flows in decisions of financial statement users in listed companies on Tehran stock exchange, information content of operating cash flows and accruals in the connection with decision-making criteria used by different groups using financial statement has been examined. In this study, we use eliminating sampling and implied limitations and the sample size includes 203 companies to examine six hypotheses. The results of this research indicate that there is a significant different between accruals and operating cash flows information content in relation to various decision-making criteria but utilizing accruals and operating cash flows supplementary and simultaneously in profit frame depending on the selection criteria may or may not be include information value-added.

Developing an Enterprise Architecture is a complex task and to control the complexity of the regulatory framework we need to measure the relative performance of one system against other available systems. On the other hand, enterprise architecture cannot be organized without the use of a logical structure. The framework provides a logical structure for classifying architectural output. Among the common architectural framework, the C4ISR framework and methodology of the product is one of the most popular techniques. In this paper, given the existing uncertainties in system development and information systems, a new version of UML called Fuzzy-UML is proposed for enterprise architecture development based on fuzzy Petri nets. In addition, the performance of the system is also evaluated based on Fuzzy sequence diagram.

This research studies the effects of performance criteria (accounting, market and economy) on the quality of financial reporting in Iran. To evaluate the variable financial reporting quality, the scores given to each company are applied based on the checklist introduced by Iranian Association of Certified Public Accountants and used for the disclosure of the information of the annual financial statements of companies. The statistical population of this research consists of the companies listed on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2006-2011. This research, which is classified as applied research, uses the methods of multivariate regression test. The data and hypotheses of this research are analyzed and tested using correlation test and means difference test. The results of the tests conducted on 99 companies indicate that there is a significant and positive relation between the rate of return on equity and the equality of financial reporting. There is also a significant and positive relation between earnings per share and the equality of financial reporting. However, there is no relationship between QTOBIN and the equality of financial reporting. Finally, our results indicate there is a significant and positive relation between market value-added and the equality of financial reporting.

Understanding customers’ behavior normally helps planning better marketing strategies, which could lead to an increase in market share and profitability. Loyal customers are always considered as the most important assets for any firm. This paper presents a survey to detect factors influencing the formation of loyal customers’ mental image. The proposed study uses factor analysis to determine these factors by designing a questionnaire and distributing among some loyal customers who do banking business in Bank Melli Iran located in city of Tehran, Iran. The results indicate that there were eight important factors influencing customer loyalty including social status, business identity, brand strength, the contract role, organizational benefit, consumer rights, organizational image and supporting power.

Brand loyalty is one of the most important factors influencing on the success of retail stores. Many retail stores in the field of sport shoes in city of Tehran, Iran are facing tight competition and there seems to be that only stores with loyal customers could survive. In this paper, we present an exploration study to find out important factors influencing retail stores selling one of well-known sport shows such as Adidas, Nike, etc. in city of Tehran, Iran. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes among 265 regular customers of these stores and analyze them using factor analysis. The results indicate that there were four important factors influencing customer loyalty including brand identification, brand promotion, brand loyalty and characterization of stores.

This study investigates the explanatory power of leverage and cash flows in future cash flow prediction in Tehran Stock Exchange by considering Signaling Theory and Pecking Order Theory. Based on theoretical foundations, the regression models of leverage and cash flow with a set of control variables was developed. Statistical samples consist of companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2005- 2011. The results show that there was a negative relationship between cash flow and leverage levels in contemporary time. This is consistent with pecking order behavior. While at intertemporer level, there was a positive relationship between current leverage and the firm & apos; s cash flows in the future. This is consistent with signaling theory.

A very challenging issue in robot navigation or path planning in an unknown environment is to find a globally optimal path from the start to the target point at the same time avoid collisions. This paper presents a new sensor-based online method for generating collision-free optimal path for mobile robots to take a target amidst static obstacles. It is assumed that, target is static and the location of obstacles is completely unknown for robot and all of these materials will be calculated online. Although the area that is under vision of robot’s sensor is confined, we have to consider an inevitable assumption that target is detectable by robot in everywhere. Proposed algorithm to avoid colliding the obstacles in its way toward target, detects a short and feasible paths by utilizing an innovative and effective method. Following that, shortest of them to will be chosen for navigation. There are different important factors which are considered in robot motion planning problems. First, required time for robot’s action in unpredicted circumstances that the running time of the used algorithm plays a major role in this term. Second, the length of traveled path from start point to target point that represents the efficiency of exploited algorithm for leading the robot. The presented algorithm of this paper has proved its efficiency in both of mentioned issues. Simulation results show that traveled path has the least length and the running time is remarkably less than other presented algorithms until now. In addition, the effectiveness of presented algorithm in complex situation is discernible. These results prove that the presented novel and effective robot navigation algorithm is very suitable for real-time navigation in complex environments.

During the past few years, there have been growing interests among researchers to study the effect of block share ownership on corporate earning especially in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of block ownership on performance of firms in terms of profitability. The proposed study develops two econometric models and applies them on selected firms from Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2002-2010. The primary objective of this survey is to find the relationship between return of assets and Tobin & apos; s Q as dependent variables with eight independent variables including company size, sales growth, block ownership, debt and liability ratios, etc. The results of implementation of ordinary least squares on two econometric models reveal that while there is no meaningful relationship between return of asset and block ownership there is a meaningful relationship between block ownership and Tobin & apos; s Q.