The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of integer data in data envelopment analysis (DEA). The inputs and outputs in different types of DEA are considered to be continuous. In most application-oriented problems, some or all data are integers; and subsequently, the continuous condition of the values is omitted. For example, situations in which the inputs/outputs are representatives of the number of cars, people, etc. In fact, the benchmark unit is artificial and does not contain integer inputs/outputs after projection on the efficiency frontier. By rounding off the projection point, we may lose the feasibility or end up having inefficient DMU. In such cases, it is required to provide a benchmark unit such that the considered unit reaches the efficiency. In the present short communication, by proposing a novel algorithm, the projecting of an inefficient DMU is carried out in such a way that produced benchmarking takes values with fully integer inputs/outputs.

Balanced scorecard is a performance appraisal method planned for measuring the organizational efficiency to develop their strategies. Organization’s strategies in a specified period are the main inputs in this model. Furthermore, due to nature, experts & apos; opinions play the vital role in determining the strategies. In this research, the proposed algorithm is designed by using fuzzy set covering problem and non-linear multiple objective integer programming (zero and one variables), so that it can be useful to choose the best combination of strategies for specified period of time with the least deviation in experts` opinions. The presented model is carried out in Islamic Azad University, Semnan Branch. The results indicate that the designed model can provide the best combination of strategies for entering into the balanced scorecard system.

In this study, the backpropagation neural network (BPNN) is tested for the ability to forecast the daily volatility of two stock market indices from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region using volume; namely Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Volatility series were estimated using the Exponential Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (EGARCH) model. The simulation results show that trading volume helps improving the forecasting accuracy of BPNN in Morocco but not in Saudi Arabia. As a result, volume represents valuable information flow to be used in the modeling and prediction of volatility in Morocco. In addition, it is found that BPNN overpredicts volatility during high volatile periods. This finding is important in financial applications such as asset allocation and derivatives pricing.

In this paper, we propose an empirical study of QFD implementation when fuzzy numbers are used to handle the uncertainty associated with different components of the proposed model. We implement fuzzy analytical network to find the relative importance of various criteria and using fuzzy numbers we calculate the relative importance of these factors. The proposed model of this paper uses fuzzy matrix and house of quality to study the products development in QFD and also the second phase i.e. part deployment. In most researches, the primary objective is only on CRs to implement the quality function deployment and some other criteria such as production costs, manufacturing costs etc were disregarded. The results of using fuzzy analysis network process based on the QFD model in Daroupat packaging company to develop PVDC show that the most important indexes are being waterproof, resistant pill packages, and production cost. In addition, the PVDC coating is the most important index in terms of company experts’ point of view.

In the present study, the separate and simultaneous role of concentration and type of ownership on corporate value is investigated. In this study, the ownership structure is classi?ed into four classes: the institutional ownership, the corporate ownership, the management ownership and the foreign ownership. In addition, di?erent attitudes regarding the above ownership are also tested, that is, active monitoring hypothesis and interest convergence hypothesis. Since, in the sample research no information was found about foreign ownership, this type of ownership was not examined. However, in the case of the other ownerships, a separated hypothesis was developed based on various techniques and their in?uence on the corporate value was examined. For each hypothesis, a multiple linear regression model is de?ned based on the dependent variables. Companies listed in securities exchange commission of Iran makes up the statistical community of present study and the sample consists of 90 companies during 2002-2008. Two types of tests, including correlation test and cross multiple regression test are implemented to examine the hypothesis. Generally, the results reflect no signi?cant relationship between the concentration of ownership and the corporate value. The results of the study show that, while there is no relationship between the institutional ownership and management ownership and the corporate value, there is a signi?cant relationship between the corporate ownership and the corporate value.

In this paper, we present an empirical study to detect important factors, which could increase the number of moviegoers. The study distributes a questionnaire among different people at four age groups including 35.2% (men), and 64.8% (women), most of them are single (between 21 to 30 years) living at 3- to 4-member families, holding BA degree with 4 to 7 million Rials monthly salary. Inferential statistics tests, including Kolmogorov–Smirnov, binominal or ratio, Chi Square and Friedman, show that type of story, genre and artists, casts are considered as the most important factors in selection of film while quality of sound, seat comfort, ventilation of cinema hall are regarded as the most important factors in selection of cinema. In addition, cinema is not predominant pastime or hobby of individuals during holidays and existence of more attractive pastimes than cinema is the most important factor, which hinders individuals from going to cinema. Individuals go to cinema fewer than three times a year, primarily during the afternoon of holidays at the weekend. TV teasers and word of mouth advertisements are the most significant publicity tools for those individuals who intend to go to cinema halls. These two factors, i.e. TV teasers and word of mouth advertisements, are the most significant sources of studying individuals for the selection of film. Individuals almost select their favorite movies before going to cinema and if ticket is finished at the box office of cinema, they suspend watching film in another time and finally, they re-plan watching film. It should be noted that satisfaction of individuals from cinema is much more effective than their satisfaction from film.

Information technology (IT) plays a vital role on developing different markets. In this paper, we study the impact of IT on developing businesses located mainly on free zones or in the borders of countries using analytical hierarchy process. The proposed study of this paper gathered the relative importance of five important factors influencing IT implementation. There are 12 experts and we use pairwise comparison to gather their insight and using Expert Choice we implement AHP for ranking the factors. The results indicate that management is the most important factor, followed by cultural and social items. The other factors including technical, investment and organization items are in lower degree of importance.

E-procurement risks has emerged as an important issue for researchers and practitioners because mitigating supply chain risk helps improve firms’ as well as supply chains’ performance. E-marketplaces have been steadily growing and there have been significant interest in e-business research. There are different risks and uncertainties involved with E-marketplaces, which jeopardizes the sector but we have had a large amount of hype and the business still continue to grow. The primary aim of this study is to identify E-procurement risks and evaluate them using a fuzzy AHP framework. We contribute E-procurement risk by identifying 13 critical criteria and determine four important ones including the extent of acceptable information, interrelationship risk, lack of honesty in relationships and product quality and safety for evaluating suppliers’ risk.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of organizational culture on knowledge management. To learn more about the organizational culture, we choose five variables including team-work, learning, discussion, management support and communication. The propose study consists one main hypothesis and five sub hypotheses and it is performed among all employees and management team of East Azarbayjan power supplier. The population of our survey includes 1482 people and a sample of 488 people is chosen in this survey. A questionnaire is distributed among all members and Cronbach Alpha is 0.83, which yields highly reliable results. The data are analyzed using SPSS software package with different non-parametric methods and the results confirm all hypotheses in our survey. According to the results of our survey, culture and communication play important role for the success of an idea and knowledge creation. Negotiation, top management support and learning style are second most important factors influencing knowledge management.

Technology transfer has been a very frequent activity in the industrial world nowadays. Technology valuation, and in particular technology pricing, has played a considerable role in these transactions, in spite of a huge amount of limitations in the pricing methodologies applied. Making a sound, traceable and reliable means for applying the price evaluation procedure, seems as a technological requirement to be traced for. The objective of delivering this paper is to introduce a new numerical technology pricing method to provide the two transacting parties a unique compromised price. A three-dimensional model for technology pricing is proposed and The TOPSPS algorithm has been utilized to select the most similar technologies to the intended one and the constructed scoring system is applied to calculate the final technology price accordingly.