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.

This paper presents an empirical investigation on the effect of organizational climate on development of electronic learning in one of Iranian banks named Bank Maskan. In our survey, organizational characteristics include organizational structure, organizational communication, reward and promotion, organizational commitment, risk taking, organizational conflict and team-work. The proposed study uses two questionnaires, one for organizational climate and the other one for electronic learning, in Likert scale. Cronbach alpha for these two questionnaires are calculated as 0.79 and 0.86, respectively. Using Pearson correlation ratio as well as stepwise regression analysis, the study determines that organizational structure, organizational communication, reward and promotion, organizational commitment, risk taking and team-work influence on electronic learning, positively.

During the past few years, there has been increasing interest in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of learning organizations (LO) in universities. The theoretical basis of this study was based on a comprehensive and systematic approach to learning organization proposed by Michael Marquardt. The aim of this study was to evaluate the benefit of Islamic Azad University, Neyshabur branch as educational characteristics in terms of LO characteristics according to the science and technology dimensions. The study population included all faculty members of Islamic Azad University Neyshabur branch, 90 university professors were selected by simple random sampling, and they completed the questionnaires of the survey. The research instruments included a researcher-made questionnaire based on the Marquardt-reviewed literature and consultation with experts. The questionnaire included 50 items with a Likert scale of five degrees. Validity of the questionnaire was affirmed by calculating Cronbach & apos; s alpha coefficient. To test the hypothesis, paired t-student tests were used and the results indicated that the status of Islamic Azad University in terms of LO characteristics was significantly different from the desirable level.

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of Circle of Security (COS) on preschool children & apos; s attachment and well-being. 48 mothers with children & apos; s age 4 to 6 year were randomly selected through cluster sampling and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (24 mothers and child in each group). Then the experimental group received 20 weekly COS sessions in the center of preschool. The attachment Q-set and Preschool children well-being questionnaire (PCWQ) were used as the pretest, post-test and in the course of follow-up. Results of Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) showed that the mean scores of attachment, in the experimental group, was significantly greater than the control group in post-test (P = 0.000) and follow-up (P = 0.002). Results also showed that the scores of well-being in experimental group was significantly greater than the control group in post-test (P = 0.006) and follow–up (P = 0.018). The finding of the study emphasized the importance of training of attachment in improvement of preschool children & apos; s attachment and well-being. More studies are suggested to understand better efficacy of maternal behavior on preschool children & apos; s well-being.

In this work, a low cost glucose and methanol nonenzymatic sensor was prepared using nickel oxide (NiO) nanofilm electrodeposited on a bare Cu electrode. Electrochemical deposition was assisted with cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a template. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was applied to observe the surface morphology of the modified electrode. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and amperometry techniques were used to study the electrocatalytic behavior of NiO porous film in glucose and methanol detection. For glucose sensing, the electrode showed a linear relationship in the concentration range of 0.01-2.14 mM with a low limit of detection (LOD) 1.7 µM (signal/noise ratio (S/N)=3). Moreover, high sensitivities of 4.02 mA mM?1 cm?2 and 0.38 mA mM?1 cm?2 respectively in glucose and methanol monitoring suggested the modified electrode as an excellent sensor. The NiO-Cu modified electrode was relatively insensitive to common biological interferers. This sensor possessed good poison resistance towards chloride ions, and long term stability and significant selectivity towards glucose and methanol. Finally the proposed sensor was successfully applied for determination of glucose in human blood serum samples.

High performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCC) are aggregates like cement grout with fine grains and fibers which can be used in many cases like seismic improvement of building components. One of these building components is connecting beam in coupled shear wall which can increase plasticity and energy absorption. In this paper nonlinear finite element model of coupled beam containing HPFRCC is analyzed and the influence diagonal reinforcement is investigated on cracking patterns, stress contours and hysteresis diagrams of shear wall. It was observed that diagonal reinforcements play significant role in shear load bearing capacity of shear wall coupled with HPFRCC beam.

As the population grows and demand increases, cities have seen a rise in the number of chain stores. To remain competitive, these companies must reduce costs and attract more customers. A key factor in achieving this is the strategic placement of store branches, which reduces the distance between stores and customers, instilling trust and increasing their appeal while also cutting costs by reducing the need for employees to navigate longer distances. In this study, an integer linear programming model is presented with the goal of dividing a zone in Ahvaz city into several scenarios to determine the optimal number of stores while maintaining control over the distance between active stores. This research is the first to include this specific limitation in the mathematical model of the problem. The results of the study demonstrate a significant reduction in the distance between customers and stores.