Modeling Accounting Profit Behavior Based on Events Theory a Comparative Study of Companies Listed on the Tehran and Istanbul Stock Exchange

Purpose: Th is study aims to evaluate the effect of annual financial events on operating, and net accounting profits in the financial statements of Iranian and Turkish companies.    Theoretical framework: The profitability of the company is one of the main factors that determine shareholder and investor returns. This topic has been central to a number of contemporary financial studies discussed in the literature review.   Design/methodology/approach: To conduct the research, data related to the financial statements of 121 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange for a period of 10 years from 2010 to 2019 and 151 companies listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange for a period of 10 years from 2010 to 2019 were used.   Findings: According to the results, there was a significant relationship between financial events and operating, and net accounting profits of Iranian and Turkish companies. Moreover, current and previous financial statements affected accounting profit, and no significant difference was observed between the two geographical locations of Iran and Turkey.   Research, Practical & Social Implications: Information about companies' financial statements could be utilized by investors and analysts to more suitably analyze companies' current and future profits and returns.   Originality/value: Most previous studies have assessed factors inside or outside the organization affecting profit, and the capacity of complete information on the change of the financial situation in different periods and its effect on profit behavior has not been thoroughly analyzed. This matter highlights the significance of our study

Relationship between organizational justice and perceived organizational agility: Meditating the effect of achievement motivation (A case study on teachers’ viewpoints in Mahallat Azad University)

The aim of this research is to determine the relationship between organizational justice and perceived organizational activity based on the mediating effect of job achievement motivation. The method of this research is descriptive-correlational. The population of the investigation included all professors in Mahallat Azad University (121 members) in the educational year of 2012-2013. Due to the small number of the population all of members were selected as sample. The data were collected through the library and survey method. The instrument of the research consisted of three researcher-made questionnaires: (a) Moreman and Niove (2001) organizational justice questionnaire (α=0.91); (b) the researcher-made organizational agility questionnaire (α = 0.89); (c) the researcher-made job achievement motivation questionnaire (α = 0.94). All questionnaires were set and calibrated according to 5-point Likert scale. To determine the content validity of the questionnaire, we consulted the experts. The data were analyzed through Pearson correlation and stepwise multiple regression methods. Generally the results of the research showed that there was a significant relationship between organizational justice in three dimensions (distributing, procedural, interactive) and organizational agility. The results also illustrated that the indirect influence of distributive justice on the enhancement of the perceived organizational agility was 0.019, the indirect influence of procedural justice on the enhancement of perceived organizational agility was 0.02, and the indirect influence of interactive justice on the enhancement of perceived organizational agility was 0.023. The results also showed that according to findings: RMSEA = 0.048, RMR= 0.029, GFI =0.96, AGFI =0.089, P (value) = 0.0072,df =2, =5.62, and illustrating the good fit of the case study

Relationship between organizational justice and perceived organizational agility: Meditating the effect of achievement motivation (A case study on teachers’ viewpoints in Mahallat Azad University)

The aim of this research is to determine the relationship between organizational justice and perceived organizational activity based on the mediating effect of job achievement motivation. The method of this research is descriptive-correlational. The population of the investigation included all professors in Mahallat Azad University (121 members) in the educational year of 2012-2013. Due to the small number of the population all of members were selected as sample. The data were collected through the library and survey method. The instrument of the research consisted of three researcher-made questionnaires: (a) Moreman and Niove (2001) organizational justice questionnaire (α=0.91); (b) the researcher-made organizational agility questionnaire (α = 0.89); (c) the researcher-made job achievement motivation questionnaire (α = 0.94). All questionnaires were set and calibrated according to 5-point Likert scale. To determine the content validity of the questionnaire, we consulted the experts. The data were analyzed through Pearson correlation and stepwise multiple regression methods. Generally the results of the research showed that there was a significant relationship between organizational justice in three dimensions (distributing, procedural, interactive) and organizational agility. The results also illustrated that the indirect influence of distributive justice on the enhancement of the perceived organizational agility was 0.019, the indirect influence of procedural justice on the enhancement of perceived organizational agility was 0.02, and the indirect influence of interactive justice on the enhancement of perceived organizational agility was 0.023. The results also showed that according to findings: RMSEA = 0.048, RMR= 0.029, GFI =0.96, AGFI =0.089, P (value) = 0.0072,df =2, =5.62, and illustrating the good fit of the case study

Towards AoI-aware Smart IoT Systems

Age of Information (AoI) has gained importance as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for characterizing the freshness of information in information-update systems and time-critical applications. Recent theoretical research on the topic has generated significant understanding of how various algorithms perform in terms of this metric on various system models and networking scenarios. In this paper, by the help of the theoretical results, we analyzed the AoI behavior on real-life networks, using our two test-beds, addressing IoT networks and regular computers. Excessive number of AoI measurements are provided for variations of transport protocols such as TCP, UDP and web-socket, on wired and wireless links. Practical issues such as synchronization and selection of hardware along with transport protocol, and their effects on AoI are discussed. The results provide insight toward application and transport layer mechanisms for optimizing AoI in real-life networks

DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH MODULUS ASPHALT CONCRETE MIX DESIGN TECHNOLOGY FOR USE ON ONTARIO’S HIGHWAYS

Asphalt pavement is subjected to external loads including mechanical loading induced by traffic and thermal loading induced by thermal variations. The last decades have witnessed a significant rise in number of heavy vehicles especially commercial trucks with higher axle loads on rural and arterial roads in Ontario. Consequently, by increasing the number and amplitude of traffic loading and severe environmental condition, servile life of asphalt pavements has been adversely affected. In many cases, premature distresses were occurred before expected service life of asphalt pavements reaches to its end. On the other hand, new pavement materials, design procedures and construction technologies have been developed worldwide. One of these technologies is “Enrobé à Module Élevé- (EME)” or “High-Modulus Asphalt Mix”. EME is a type of asphalt concrete that represents high modulus/stiffness, high durability, superior rutting performance and good fatigue resistance. This type of mix was developed in France in the 1980’s. EME is a very good option to be used in lower and upper binder courses in the pavement structure which are subject to the highest levels of tensile and compressive stresses. EME offers several advantages over conventional binder course materials including reducing the thickness of the pavement structure with improved service life and reduction in raw materials consumption. Despite the excellent performance at higher and intermediate temperatures, traditional EME mixes would be very susceptible to low-temperature cracking which is associated to using very hard grade asphalt binder. In addition to the cold climate condition, some other aspects such as traffic volume, vehicle attributes, properties of raw materials, construction methods, and testing standards are specific to Ontario. Based on the aforementioned reasons, adopting EME technology will be beneficial to Ontario’s highways. However, development of a suitable EME mix design procedure in Ontario cannot be a duplicate copy of the French method, or any other methods used in other countries or jurisdictions. This study, funded by the Highway Infrastructure Innovation Funding Program (HIIFP-2015), aims to introduce a new approach to EME mix design that contributes to good performance at high, medium and low temperatures. This could be achieved by using premium aggregate particles with dense structure (high packing density), along with utilizing high quality asphalt binder with precise content in the mix. A performance-based mix design approach is developed for EME mix design in Ontario which is a modified version of Superpave mix design procedure. Compressible Packing Model (CPM) was used for the first time to optimize the packing density of aggregate particles for two categories of mixes (12.5 mm and 19 mm Nominal Maximum Aggregate Size (NMAS)). Three types of modified asphalt binders were also considered: PG 88-28, PG 82-28 and PG 58-28 + modifiers (Elastomer additives). In addition to measuring compaction ability (compactibility) of the developed mixes, several thermo-mechanical testing methods were designated to be used in this study to evaluate the performance of asphalt mixes at different levels. Results of this study showed that the CPM-obtained gradation limits were within the grading control points of EME mixes recommended by French specification. The asphalt mixes had higher compactibility than the conventional mix, and, EME 19 was more compactible than EME 12.5 although it had less binder content than EME 12.5. Complex modulus test results illustrated that the mixes had high modulus values, and that the values of EME 19 were generally higher than those of EME 12.5. Hamburg wheel track rutting test results showed both mix types had superior rutting performance. Fatigue performance of developed mixes was assessed using four-point bending beam fatigue test at different strain levels to develop fatigue curves. The test results showed that the minimum strain level to meet 1,000,000 cycles of fatigue life (ε6) was more than 300 μm/m for all the mixes. Additionally, Thermal Stress Restrained Specimen Test (TSRST) results showed that the cracking temperatures of the developed mixes were less than -25˚C; and that EME 12.5 performed slightly better than EME 19. Binder microstructure and rheological properties were assessed using environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) and dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) equipment respectively. Two springs, two parabolic elements and one dashpot (2S2P1D) rheological model is used to model and compare the viscoelastic behavior of the binders as well as the mixes. ESEM test results showed that microstructure of PG 88-28 binder was the densest and connected with thicker fibril size. PG 58-28 + Elastomer additives had highly intertwined structural network with the thinnest fibril size among the binder types. 2S2P1D results showed it is a powerful tool for modeling highly polymer modified asphalt binders as well as EME mixes. According to developed master curves the mixes’ moduli have followed the same pattern as for the binders’ although phase angles’ patterns were different. Correlations were found between the binders’ microstructures and their rheological properties. Binders with denser structure and stronger bonds showed to have lower phase angles. Although binders with more intertwined structural network had higher modulus particularly at higher frequencies. The EME mix design approach was validated by using the second source of aggregate materials and PG 82-28 asphalt binder. The SGC compactibility test results showed that the mixes were more compactible than the conventional Superpave mix. According to the rutting test results, the mixes had almost not rut after 20,000 wheel passes on the submerged specimens at 50°C (rut-depth < 1 mm). In addition, the developed mixes with the second source of aggregates had relatively higher fatigue resistance where ε6 values were greater than 550 μm/m for both EME 12.5 and EME 19. TSRST results also depicted that the cracking temperatures of both mixes were below -30°C

Automatic Neural Question Generation using Community-based Question Answering Systems

In this thesis, we address the problem of opinion question generation. The motivation behind this task is to provide users with more question samples related to their query when using search engines. In our view, one of the datasets that is closest to peoples’ thoughts, informal and casual speech are Community Question Answering (CQA) forums, where one can post questions, and other users can answer them. Specifically, we perform experiments on the Amazon question/answer dataset. Unlike the conventional approaches that have tackled the question generation problem with hand-crafted rules, our approach is entirely data-driven. We model our problem with the sequence to sequence approach using an encoder-decoder structure, which has shown significant improvement in different natural language processing research areas in recent years. Our model benefits from the attention mechanism, which assists the model in fo- cusing on a specific part of the input sentence. Furthermore, we provide solutions to the following problems: repetition of words and generating outside of vocabulary tokens. We provide a detailed explanation of the performance of the system. Experimental results show an improvement in automatic evaluation metrics such as the BLEU score over the state-of- the-art question generation system