Abstract: Despite the significance of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithm to market segmentation, there is a need of a comprehensive literature review and a classification system for it towards identification of future trend of market segmentation research. The present work is the first identifiable academic literature review of the application of neural network based techniques to segmentation. Our study has provided an academic database of literature between the periods of 2000–2010 and proposed a classification scheme for the articles. One thousands (1000) articles have been identified, and around 100 relevant selected articles have been subsequently reviewed and classified based on the major focus of each paper. Findings of this study indicated that the research area of ANN based applications are receiving most research attention and self organizing map based applications are second in position to be used in segmentation. The commonly used models for market segmentation are data mining, intelligent system etc. Our analysis furnishes a roadmap to guide future research and aid knowledge accretion and establishment pertaining to the application of ANN based techniques in market segmentation. Thus the present work will significantly contribute to both the industry and academic research in business and marketing as a sustainable valuable knowledge source of market segmentation with the future trend of ANN application in segmentation.

Abstract: The idea of this paper is to determine the mental models of actors in the firm with respect to the stakeholder approach of corporate governance. The use of the cognitive map to view these diagrams to show the ways of thinking and conceptualization of the stakeholder approach. The paper takes a corporate governance perspective, discusses stakeholder model. It takes also a cognitive mapping technique.

Abstract: One of the main challenges in Stock Market is to choose an appropriate combinations of various assets. The aim of this study is to propose a hybrid method, which is able to survey one problem with some criteria that it is very good for investment problem. In this study, we use a hybrid multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) model, which shows the dependent relationships among criteria with DEMATEL method to build a relations-structure among criteria. We then use Analytical Network Process (ANP) to determine the relative weights of each criterion with dependence and feedback, and the VIKOR method is implemented to rank and select the best alternatives for investment. This study is in stock exchange in Iran to select the best stocks and the data are gathered through the years (2006-2010). There are a lot of methods to rank and select of firms that most of the methods just do one, ranking or selecting; but the used method in this study not only ranks the firms but also determines which firms (stocks) are best for investment, so that in this study 2 of 50 firms are proposed for investment.

Abstract: Unified Modeling Language (UML) has been recognized as one of the most popular techniques to describe static and dynamic aspects of software systems. One of the primary issues in designing software packages is the existence of uncertainty associated with such models. Fuzzy-UML to describe software architecture has both static and dynamic perspective, simultaneously. The evaluation of software architecture design phase initiates always help us find some additional requirements, which helps reduce cost of design. In this paper, we use a fuzzy data model to describe the static aspects of software architecture and the fuzzy sequence diagram to illustrate the dynamic aspects of software architecture. We also transform these diagrams into Petri Nets and evaluate reliability of the architecture. The web-based hotel reservation system for further explanation has been studied.

Abstract: Organizations with activities of all kinds are influenced by environmental conditions, and external environment is in fact the beginning point of the strategy. Strategic management is an approach resulting from fast changing age and can consider it as a view and a technique for flexible planning to fast changes, and balanced score card is regarded as one of the strong instruments in this zone. Balanced score card can truly plays an important role in all stages of strategic management and the efficiency of this model is considerably regarded in management performance evaluation in different organizations. However, strong instrument such as balance score card is hardly used because of long term dominance of political approaches in the management of Iran media organizations. This paper conceptualizes administrational trend of strategic planning by implementing balanced score card and we draw strategy map and determine performance indexes in a written media organization (Hamshahri Newspaper).

Abstract: Information technology plays an important role in increasing organizational cooperation both inside an organization and among different firms. In fact, may organizations have shared information though the recent advances of information technology and they have been able to increase the performance of their organizations, significantly. In this paper, we present an empirical study to investigate the relationship between e-business and intra and extra organizational cooperation. The results indicate that e-business directly increase intra organizational performance, indirectly increase organizational cooperation. Extra organizational performance directly increase organization performance, inside cooperation also indirectly influence inside cooperation through extra organization cooperation.

Abstract: Today, countries compete to gain political, economic, social and cultural advantages. In addition, cities are trying to demonstrate their predominance on local and regional levels and achieve development by using managerial science. Meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions tourism (MICE) hosting as a significant element of urban tourism is one of the effective methods to obtain urban development around the world. However, no specialized planning and independent investments in regard to these activities have been organized in Iran. Aiming to identify suitable areas in the northern part of Iran, the present research intends to recognize the necessary physical and location related (P.L) indexes to perform the specialized activities of MICE tourism in this region. So at first, indispensable indicators to accept special role of MICE tourism are identified and then using GIS and fuzzy method, adapted areas are assigned. The result map shows that a ribbon-like area near the Caspian Sea with two wide lands at central and western parts is a proper choice to host MICE activities in the region from the viewpoint of P.L indexes.

Abstract: There is no doubt that traditional accounting does not provide actual value of assets since they only measure tangible assets. Intellectual capital provides a new concept for measuring actual value of the assets and we can calculate future values of the firm. In this paper, we first calculate intellectual capital based on the ratio of market value/book value for three years period. Then we investigate the relationship between intellectual capital and growth rate of intellectual capital as well as financial performance of some publicly traded petrochemical and pharmaceutical firms. The results of our survey indicate that there is a positive relationship between intellectual capital and equity growth with EVA and return of assets. However, there is no meaningful relationship between intellectual assets with net earnings.

Abstract: This paper tackles the single machine scheduling problem with dependent setup time and precedence constraints. The primary objective of this paper is minimization of total weighted tardiness. Since the complexity of the resulted problem is NP-hard we use metaheuristics method to solve the resulted model. The proposed model of this paper uses genetic algorithm to solve the problem in reasonable amount of time. Because of high sensitivity of GA to its initial values of parameters, a Taguchi approach is presented to calibrate its parameters. Computational experiments validate the effectiveness and capability of proposed method.

Abstract: Uncertainty plays an important role on many engineering problems and there is a growing interest in having reliable solutions especially for problems with sensitive parameters. The paper presents a robust optimization (RO) model for multi-objective operation of capacitated P-hub location problems (MCpHLP) under uncertainty set. There are, at least, two parameters in any P-hub problems, which are under uncertainty. The first one is associated with demand and the second one is the amount of time required to process commodities. We present a scenario based robust optimization technique, where these two items are considered under various scenario and a RO is implemented to find reliable solutions. The implementation of the proposed RO model is demonstrated for an example using weighting method.

Abstract: Railroad industry has received tremendous challenges in the world in terms of handling cost and efficiency. For many years, the railroad business lost money in many countries such as Japan until many governments decided to privatize the industry in an attempt to reduce the cost components and to increase the efficiency of various units, significantly. In this paper, we propose a new goal programming technique to handle two objectives of operating cost and the number of passengers travel by train. We consider different types of trains for public transportation of passengers in order to make the proposed model of this paper more realistic. The implementation of the proposed model is demonstrated using some numerical examples to show the effectiveness of the method.

Abstract: Railroad transportation planning is strategically a long term and an important decision making problem especially in the area of travelling passengers. There have been literally various methods to use in order to provide optimum traveling schedule such as direct or indirect methods. Direct solutions involve the implementation of mixed integer programming, which is often hard to solve for real-world applications. The proposed model of this paper uses a column generation method to decompose a large-scale railroad passenger-scheduling problem into some smaller scale problems, which are easier to solve. The primary concern with the resulted problem is that final solutions of the method need to be integer and this is in contrast with convexity assumption of column generation techniques. We propose heuristic method to handle this problem and apply the proposed model for some examples. The preliminary results indicate that the proposed model of this paper could provide optimal solutions for small-scale problems and it can reach some reasonable solutions for larger problems when direct implementation fails to do in reasonable amount of time.

Abstract: In this research, we conduct a reverse study to design a compatible model of share issue privatization for Tehran stock exchange (TSE) development. Privatization and stock market development are known as two representatives of economic growth. Governments use these two economic means to achieve their development goals. In this study, the impact of share issue privatization on stock market development is studied and an optimal model of share issue privatization for Tehran stock exchange (TSE) development is introduced. To study the effect of share issue privatization on key market development variables panel data of privatization index(IPIX), transaction volume, turnover velocity ratio and closing price of each TSE listed company are entered in co integration and error correction models (ECM) during march 2008-June 2011. The result of statistical studies shows a significant relation between privatization index (IPIX) growth and the growth of each of Tehran stock exchange development proxies. Then to design a compatible model of share issue privatization for Tehran stock market development, Delphi method following Schmitt approach during 4 phases is implemented.

Abstract: In this paper, the problem of predicting the exchange rate time series in the foreign exchange rate market is going to be solved using a time-delayed multilayer perceptron neural network with gold price as external factor. The input for the learning phase of the artificial neural network are the exchange rate data of the last five days plus the gold price in two different currencies of the exchange rate as the external factor for helping the artificial neural network improving its forecast accuracy. The five-day delay has been chosen because of the weekly cyclic behavior of the exchange rate time series with the consideration of two holidays in a week. The result of forecasts are then compared with using the multilayer peceptron neural network without gold price external factor by two most important evaluation techniques in the literature of exchange rate prediction. For the experimental analysis phase, the data of three important exchange rates of EUR/USD, GBP/USD, and USD/JPY are used.

Abstract: Clustering plays an important role on developing industries, since business units can take advantage of many existing industries for trouble shooting or sharing their experiences to increase efficiency. One of the primary concerns for developing clustering is to identify and remove important barriers. In this paper, we gather experts' feedbacks on forming clustering in Iran's industries and, using analytical network process, we prioritize the important factors and provide some necessary guidelines to develop clustering. The results of this paper indicate that the existence of a supplier network is the most important factor, followed by the existence of competition between operational units, existence of high-risk investors, existence of suitable infrastructures. There are also other less important criteria including the existence of flexibility, suitable technology and competition, governmental regularities, social background, trust, etc.

Abstract: Structure analysis plays an important role on increasing the efficiency of banking industry. A change in structure of business in this industry could change the profitability, significantly. The proposed study of this paper aims at structural analysis and comparative advantages for a governmental bank in a province of Semnan, Iran called Melli bank. The proposed study considers the effectiveness of four saving plans including current, loaned with no interest, short and long term based in three periods. It applies the change of location-share model, which includes provincial growth influence, structural growth and competitive growth as the determinant variables in saving rate. Findings indicate the disproportionate growth of saving rate in the Melli bank toward the other banks of the province in every 3 terms of the study. The research results show that short time saving in 2001 and 2004, loaned without interest and short term savings in 2001 and 2008, loaned without interest and long term savings in 2004 and 2008 had negative structural changes which indicate that the combination of discussed saving wasn’t desirable, but other savings benefits of desirable combination.

Abstract: The idea of Science and Technology parks has been widely used in many countries and many innovative plans are initiated in these places. In this paper, we present a multiple criteria decision making plan to prioritize important factors influencing the success of an innovative plan. The study uses fuzzy triangular numbers to gather decision makers' feedback on different criteria and rank them using fuzzy VIKOR method. The results of our survey indicate that it is important to be the first who introduce the idea, the idea must be important for customers and market and it must be scientifically justified. Among other important criteria, the availability of experts to support the ideas and applicability in the area of human and social science are of important criteria. The plan also does not need to have huge amount of investment and a complicated technology and finally it should come to market in short amount of time.

Abstract: Just in time is one of the most important components of having efficient production plan. The primary objective of JIT is to reduce the amount of storage as much as possible to remove the cost of inventories and work-in-progress. However, the implementation of JIT is a tedious task especially in developing countries, where there are shortages for essential infrastructures and increase the risk of production in case of JIT adaptation. In this paper, we present a survey to detect important factors preventing JIT implementation in Iran. The proposed study designs a questionnaire for assessing important factors influencing JIT adaptation, which includes inflation, political sanction, unreliable suppliers, shortage of cash flow and weak organizational culture. The results of our survey confirm that shortage of cash flow is the most important factor, follows by economical sanction and inflation.

Abstract: Integrated supply chain includes different components of order, production and distribution and it plays an important role on reducing the cost of manufacturing system. In this paper, an integrated supply chain in a form of multi-objective decision-making problem is presented. The proposed model of this paper considers different parameters with uncertainty using trapezoid numbers. We first implement a ranking method to covert the fuzzy model into a crisp one and using multi-objective particle swarm optimization, we solve the resulted model. The results are compared with the performance of NSGA-II for some randomly generated problems and the preliminary results indicate that the proposed model of the paper performs better than the alternative method.

Abstract: Road construction projects are considered as the most important governmental issues since there are normally heavy investments required in such projects. There is also shortage of financial resources in governmental budget, which makes the asset allocation more challenging. One primary step in reducing the cost is to determine different risks associated with execution of such project activities. In this study, we present some important risk factors associated with road construction in two levels for a real-world case study of rail-road industry located between two cities of Esfahan and Deligan. The first group of risk factors includes the probability and the effects for various attributes including cost, time, quality and performance. The second group of risk factors includes socio-economical factors as well as political and managerial aspects. The study finds 21 main risk factors as well as 193 sub risk factors. The factors are ranked using groups decision-making method called linear assignment. The preliminary results indicate that the road construction projects could finish faster with better outcome should we carefully consider risk factors and attempt to reduce their impacts.

Abstract: The generalized assignment problem (GAP) is a unique extended form of the Knapsack problem, which is tremendously practical in optimization fields. For instance, resource allocation, sequencing, supply chain management, etc. This paper tackles the GAP in uncertain environment in which the assignment costs and capacity of agents are fuzzy numbers. Two models are presented for this problem and a novel hybrid algorithm is offered using simulated annealing (SA) method and max-min fuzzy in order to obtain near optimal solution. Computational experiments validate the efficiency of proposed method.

Abstract: The study examined the market entry strategies of multinational services companies into Ghana’s service sector and the linkages to firm level performance after entry. Literature was reviewed on market entry strategies, internationalisation, globalisation of service firms and resource-based theory. The study adopted a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research approaches in this study. The qualitative approach was for deeper enquiry and quantitative for empirical testing. The study found that firm specific factors affect the market entry strategy while the entry strategy also affects performance after it enters the market. Home country factors and the features of services are also seen to moderate on the effects mentioned. Respondents also indicated that the features of services were an industry wide issue not so much consideration is given to it.

Abstract: Students at risk of dropping out of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs often display signs that indicate they are at risk. A need exists to identify at risk STEM students early and to develop and implement effective intervention strategies that utilize the Total Quality Management (TQM) approach. Most of all, a database system is needed to track this early intervention process, if retention rates are to be improved. To address this need at a small community college in North Carolina, a system was developed and underwent a pilot study in Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. The two pilot groups were compared to the two control groups to identify differences in retention, course credit completion rates, and grade point averages (GPA). The first pilot group displayed no significant differences, while the second pilot group displayed significant differences in most of the areas analyzed in the study, indicating a database system can be used to improve STEM student retention. While the second of the two pilot groups displayed promising results, managerial and logistical issues, such as less than optimal instructor involvement, impeded success were identified. This paper will describe the design, implementation, and the preliminary results of this study and outlines the need for further research that confirms these preliminary findings.

Abstract: Successful organizations share some identical factors that pave the way for their success. Among these factors, strategic management is the key to success for organizations to contribute more to the competitive world market of today. In this respect, the pivotal role of outsourcing cannot be denied. This research parallelizes the criteria affecting the outsourcing success as presented in Elmuti model with the Balanced score card method in the Tose'e Ta'avon Bank. In this research, questionnaires and interviews with experts helped determine the strategic goals at four perspectives of balanced score card method (at Tose'e Ta'avon Bank) and the relative weights were computed for each of balance score card (BSC) perspectives by using AHP method. As the next step, the indexes were prioritized by applying the quality function development(QFD) technique and considering strategic goals at four perspectives in section "WHAT" and the outsourcing success criteria of Elmuti model in section "HOW". At the end of algorithm, the results are compared with the Elmuti method. Based on the results, the hybrid proposed technique seems to perform better than Elmuti.

Abstract: Parameter design or robust parameter design (RPD) is a statistical methodology used mostly in engineering fields as a cost-effective approach for improving the quality of products and processes. The primary goal of parameter design is to choose the levels of the control variables, which optimizes a defined quality characteristic. Modeling both the mean and variance is commonly referred to as dual modeling. In parametric dual modeling, estimations of the mean and variance parameters are interrelated. When one or both of the models (the mean or variance model) are mis-specified, parametric dual modeling can lead to faulty inferences. An alternative to parametric dual modeling is nonparametric dual modeling. However, nonparametric techniques often result in estimates characterized by high variability, which leads us to ignore important knowledge. We develop a dual modeling approach called dual model robust regression (DMRR), which is robust against user misspecification of the mean and/or variance models. Numerical and asymptotic results illustrate the advantages of DMRR over several other dual model procedures. The proposed method will be illustrated with simulations.

Abstract: This paper deals with a single-machine scheduling problem with maintenance activities. Our purpose is to provide a near optimal solution using metaheuristics approach. In this problem, there are n jobs and m machines (m≥n), each job must be assigned to one and only one machine, where the processing time of job (j) is (p_j). Furthermore there are M_G groups where each group has a fix periodic interval T and for each group, the maximum number of jobs processed in the machines available time interval (T) is K, (M_G=m/K). For finding the near optimal solution, we consider optimizing total cost scheduling problem. This problem has two types of costs, group cost and gap cost. In this study, first, proposed problem is formulated in a mathematical model. Next, a heuristic genetic algorithm is used to obtain the proposed problem and on example is presented to verify the efficiency of the algorithm.

Abstract: A multi-skilled project scheduling problem (MSPSP) has been generally presented to schedule a project with staff members as resources. Each activity in project network requires different skills and also staff members have different skills, too. This causes the MSPSP becomes a special type of a multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem (MM-RCPSP) with a huge number of modes. Given the importance of this issue, in this paper, a mixed integer linear programming for the MSPSP is presented. Due to the complexity of the problem, a meta-heuristic algorithm is proposed in order to find near optimal solutions. To validate performance of the algorithm, results are compared against exact solutions solved by the LINGO solver. The results are promising and show that optimal or near-optimal solutions are derived for small instances and good solutions for larger instances in reasonable time.

Abstract: C4ISR framework describes architecture in three views of information architecture and defines a set of products, which are main outputs of enterprise architecture design. Formats and templates, which are presented for C4ISR products, cannot describe uncertainty in process or data. Meanwhile, uncertainty in many information systems is unavoidable and using the concept of fuzzy numbers in architecture design helps architects handle uncertainty in process and data of organization. In this paper, we present a new template based on fuzzy-UML concept for some of C4ISR products such as Logical Data Model (OV-7), Operational Event/Trace Description (OV-6c) and Systems Event/Trace Description (SV-10c). To explain further, fictional Fast Pass system used at OilCo gas stations is used to demonstrate details of our proposed model.

Abstract: One of the most basic requirements of financial institutes, governmental and private banks in the present age is to have a good understanding on customers' behaviors of bank network. It helps banks determine customer loyalty, which yields profit making for bank. On the other hand, it is important to know about credit risk of customers with the goal of decreasing loss and better allocation of bank resources to applicants of receiving loan. According to nature of customer loyalty discussion and credit risk, these two issues are separately studied. The present article deals with studying customer loyalty and prioritizing based one private bank in Kurdistan province. The proposed model of this paper studies customer loyalty by using Recency Frequency Monetary (RFM) factor for prioritizing customer based on loyalty properties and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). In addition, in order to calculate the relative importance coefficient or weight of loyalty properties in RFM method, the pair wise comparison matrix based on analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is used. Results show that in the present study, necessarily customers having higher average monetary value during a specified time period does not have much higher priority compared with other customers.

Abstract: In an environment, which is highly competitive and everything changes rapidly, managers of organizations face with problems such as how to identify important factors preventing organizations from optimum use of available resources and capacities and invest more on key factors. To achieve this goal, we need to develop an effective strategy map for organizations. The strategy map is a constructional and expanding procedure to identify relationships among all the organization's strategic goals, which play a key role in achieving competitive advantage. Undoubtedly, representing a model to identify and to evaluate the important items for each of available goals in strategy map of each organization is a significant help for management to access higher competition benefits. In this paper, strategic objectives in the strategy map of one of the best producer of electric auto part makers in Iran called Electric Vehicle Co. East are evaluated based on balanced score card perspective and to assign appropriate values to available factors we use a hybrid method consist of AHP technique with Fuzzy logic.

Abstract: Consulting helps managers or other people find appropriate solutions for challenges they face in their businesses. Most of the losses incurred by the people and the society could be prevented using appropriate consultation. Consultation, also, refers to people's participation in decision making. Despite dramatic development in management consulting industry in the world during the last three decades, consulting industry in Iran has faced numerous challenges. This study aims to examine the factors affecting the efficiency of management consulting services in small and medium-sized businesses and it focuses on food industries in Tehran as a real-world case study. The necessary suggestions regarding the hiring of a consultant and increasing the efficiency of management consulting services in business have been offered in this study. Some recommendations deal with the way that management consultants should respond to the managers' needs, act as a reliable and efficient adviser in public or private businesses and find their position in the Iranian market. The conceptual model of this study shows the influence of key factors affecting the purpose of consulting on the efficiency of management consulting services. To do the research, 90 people are selected as the sample size in a descriptive study with random sampling of the managers of aforementioned companies using a questionnaire. Cronbach’s alpha method was used to assess the reliability of the questionnaire. For assessing the validity of the questionnaire, we use standard questionnaire, which has already been used.

Abstract: Over the past two decades, two-way communication via web-based exchanges has been a popular method for different activities such as electronic transaction, publication, broadcasting, and other service applications. However, it is always necessary to measure the performance quality of web services using different technique such as e-SERVQUAL model. The proposed study of this paper uses this technique for measuring the quality of Iranian university e-services. The proposed study distributes a standard questionnaire among students who use this service through internet. The results indicate that only efficiency and online service quality in the e-service system are desirable. Managerial implications are represented.