In this paper, we present an empirical investigation to study the effect of various factors influencing customer loyalty and quality of services on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The proposed study is implemented in one of Iranian insurance firms by choosing a sample of 171 randomly selected customers of this insurance firm. We use SERVQUAL standard questionnaire to measure customer satisfaction. The study examines three hypotheses associated with the proposed study using one-way t-student as well as path analysis, and the results have confirmed all three hypotheses. The study also uses Freedman test to rank the most important factors and detects that value was the most important issue followed by trust, customer satisfaction, empathy, value and resistance to change.

This paper presents a survey on the effects of organizational and individual factors causing conflict on employee performance of national Iranian drilling company & apos; s logistics management. It has been of descriptive type and carried out by using the random sampling method. The statistical population included all the employees of logistics management. Invariable t-test was used in this research for data analysis. The results showed that the average factors such as education, age, personal ethics, scarcity of resources, work dependence, organizational structure and organizational culture were significantly higher than the average value (3) and the average factors such as personality, evaluation structure and reward were significantly lower than the average value (3). According to the results of this survey, feeling dependence was number one priority for creating conflict followed by personal ethics, education, resources, organizational culture, age, organizational structure, evaluation and individual personality was the last item.

This paper presents an empirical investigation on redesigning Tehran Arge square based on principles of sustainable urban development and crises management. The proposed study performs the study based on three perspectives including quality improvement, sustainability and crisis management. In terms of city quality improvement, the study detects six factors including social interaction, cleanliness, attractiveness, comfort, vitality and security. In terms of sustainability, the study discusses three areas including different types of construction, high density and use of clean energy in buildings. Finally, in terms of crisis management, the study discusses five perspectives including wide open spaces, appropriate coverage of the floor space, appropriate performance, strength of neighboring buildings and suitable materials.

Studies linking high trans-fat diets to coronary heart disease (CHD) have prompted the need to regulate, limit, or completely ban trans-fat from all commercial food products, including fast foods. Many U.S. fast food chains now claim that their food items, particularly French fries, have "no trans-fat". In a previous study, our lab tested the validity of trans-fat claims made by several popular fast food restaurants by experimentally determining the %trans-fat in oil extracted from fast food French fries. In some cases, the trans-fat content was nearly twice as high as the amount reported by the restaurant in their literature. Long John Silver & apos; s, for example, reported a trans-fat content of 25% for their French fries, while our lab actually found over 40% trans-fat. The purpose of this study is to broaden our study of Long John Silver & apos; s trans-fat claims by analyzing a variety of their food items and comparing our findings with the %trans-fat reported by the restaurant literature (nutrition fact tables). Variable Filter Array (VFA) IR spectroscopy was used to assess the trans-fat content of oil extracted from food samples. Our preliminary findings suggest that nearly every food item under study contained considerably more trans-fat than the amount reported in the restaurant’s literature.

In this paper, a rapid and simple approach was developed for the preparation of zinc pentacyanonitrosylferrate nanotubes (ZnPCNF NTs) within the cylindrical pores of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template by electrochemical method. The AAO was fabricated in two steps anodizing from aluminum foil. The first anodization of aluminum foil was performed in 0.2 mol L-1 H2C2O4 followed by removal of the formed porous oxide film by a solution of 6 wt% of phosphoric acid. The second anodization step was then performed using the same conditions as the previous step. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) method were employed to characterize the resulting highly oriented uniform hollow tube array which its diameter was in the range of 25-75 nm depending on the applied voltage and the length of nanotubes was equal to the thickness of AAO which was about 2 ?m. The growth properties of the ZnPCNF NTs array film can be achieved by controlling the structure of the template and applied potential across the cell.

Regioselective nitration of phenols using Sr(NO3)2 or benzyltriphenylphosphonium nitrate in the presence of H2SO4-silica had been realized under solvent free conditions. The reaction proceeds through the formation of nitronium ion, which attack the phenol ring preferential at ortho position in presence of Sr(NO3)2, forming mono nitrophenol. Para-orientation relative to hydroxyl group and mononitration of phenolic compounds was observed in the case of benzyltriphenylphosphonium nitrate. Some of the major advantages of this method are mild reaction conditions, high efficiency and regioselectivity of nitration and complementarity with other reported methods. In addition, benzyltriphenylphosphonium nitrate as nitrating reagent can be easily recycled.

Copper oxide nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by mechanochemical reaction, which is a green, low cost, solvent free, rapid method and followed by calcining treatment. Copper acetate monohydrate and urea were used as reagents and the resulted precursor was calcined at 500 ?C for 2h in air. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the formation of nanoparticles with an average size of about 86 nm. The Fourier transform infrared (FT–IR) spectrum and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) pattern of the product confirmed all of reflections can be indexed to pure phase of CuO with a monoclinic crystal system. The diffuse reflectance spectrum (DRS) showed a band gap of 1.7 eV.

An efficient one-pot synthesis of pyrano[2,3-c]pyrazoles via four-component reaction of phenyl hydrazine, ethyl acetoacetate, malononitrile and aromatic aldehydes, catalyzed by poly(4-vinylpyridine) is reported. This method provides many advantages such as, atom-economy, easy work up, clean procedure, short reaction times and high yields of products.

In the past, different methods for asset depreciation have been defined but most of these procedures deal with certain parameters and inputs. The availability of certain parameters in many real world situations is difficult and sometimes impossible. The primary objective of this paper is to obtain methods for calculating depreciation where some of the defined parameters are under uncertainty. Hence, by using the fuzzy science basics, extension principle and ?-cut technique, we rewrite some classic methods for calculating depreciation in fuzzy form. Then, for comparing the methods of fuzzy depreciation under uncertain conditions by using the formula of calculating the Fuzzy Present worth (FPW), the Present worth of Tax saving (PWTS) of any aforementioned methods has been obtained. Finally, since the amount of tax savings achieved for each of the methods is a fuzzy number, one of the fuzzy prioritization methods is used in order to select the best depreciation technique.

Non-traditional machining (NTM) refers to a variety of thermal, chemical, electrical and mechanical material removal processes, developed to generate complex and intricate shapes in advanced engineering materials with high strength-to-weight ratio. Selection of the optimal NTM process for generating a desired feature on a given material requires the consideration of several factors among which the type of the work material and shape to be machined are the most significant ones. Presence of a large number of NTM processes along with their complex characteristics and capabilities, and lack of experts in NTM process selection domain compel for development of a structured approach for NTM process selection for a given machining application. Thus, the objective of this paper is set to develop a decision-making model in Visual BASIC 6.0 to automate the NTM process selection procedure with the help of graphical user interface and visual decision aids. It is also integrated with quality function deployment technique to correlate the customers’ requirements (product characteristics) with technical requirements (process characteristics). Four illustrative examples are also provided to demonstrate the potentiality of the developed model in solving NTM process selection problems.