Measuring Purchase‐decision involvement ,

Nowadays, increasing competition is forcing businesses to pay more attention on customer satisfaction providing strong customer services. Increased competition has also increased marketing activities. This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine important factors influencing purchase decision involvement in food industry in city of Tehran, Iran. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale, distributes it among 270 experts in food industry and, using principle component (PCA) analysis, extracts important group of factors. The questionnaire consists of 27 questions, which is reduced to 23 questions because of sensitivity of the PCA to Skewness of data. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.81, which is well above the minimum acceptable level. The results indicate that there were four factors including individual differences, product validation, triggers and dependent behavior influencing purchasing decisions

Identification of Non-Fragile Variables Affecting Tax Audit Quality

The aim of the current research is to Identification of non-fragile variables affecting quality of tax audits, considering the environmental characteristics, conditions governing taxpayers and tax auditors. The present applied research was carried out in a period of 2012-2021 and using the data of 511 tax files of Mazandaran province. In order to present the model, first, through interviews with experts and a review of research literature, 64 factors affecting the quality of tax audits were identified in the form of three groups of characteristics of taxpayers, tax auditors and macro factors, then the relevant data were entered into BMA, TVP- DMA and TVP-DMS models. Based on the error rate, the BMA model had the highest accuracy. After estimating the model, 17 main indicators in tax auditors(the tax audits quality of past period, work experience, individual or group handling, auditor expertise, auditors' use of information, auditor's workload, conducting audits in several tax sources , dealing with related parties, the existence of an unofficial invoice, using other people's business card); Intra-company variables(accrued earning management; debt ratio) and macroeconomic variables(inflation, unofficial exchange rate, tax complexity, tax fairness, business environment index and social capital index) were identified as influencing variables. Based on the results, it is quite evident that tax audit quality has a multidimensional nature. Considering the lack of comprehensive research in the field of tax audit quality in this regard, a multifaceted model has been designed; It provides a comprehensive view of the quality of tax audit

Management Science Letters Measuring Purchase-decision involvement

Nowadays, increasing competition is forcing businesses to pay more attention on customer satisfaction providing strong customer services. Increased competition has also increased marketing activities. This paper presents an empirical investigation to determine important factors influencing purchase decision involvement in food industry in city of Tehran, Iran. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale, distributes it among 270 experts in food industry and, using principle component (PCA) analysis, extracts important group of factors. The questionnaire consists of 27 questions, which is reduced to 23 questions because of sensitivity of the PCA to Skewness of data. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.81, which is well above the minimum acceptable level. The results indicate that there were four factors including individual differences, product validation, triggers and dependent behavior influencing purchasing decisions

Artificial Intelligence Aided Agricultural Sensors for Plant Frostbite Protection

Frostbite and frost is one of the problems that endanger the health of crops and can ruin plants and fruits. Soil temperature is the most significant factor that influences the freezing depth. Therefore, monitoring and predicting this characteristic is crucial for frostbite protection. This study aims to predict soil temperature on cold days to prevent frostbite injury in crops. For this matter, we used the registered and logged hourly data by the HOBO U30 data logging device and predicted the soil temperature from air temperature, soil water content, and relative humidity. We used 80% of the data set for the training data and assigned the other 20% to the test data. RMSE and MSE were two of the evaluation criteria of the neural network in this study. Also, we calculated P-value and T-value for statistical hypothesis testing. In another approach for weighting the neural network, we used evolutionary algorithms such as Genetic Algorithm and Particle Swarm Optimization instead of the gradient-based methods. According to the results, Multi-layer perceptron neural network with the respective values 0.082 and 0.0068 for RMSE and MSE in training data and 0.085 and 0.0073 for RMSE and MSE in testing data proved to have a better performance in the soil temperature prediction compared to the ANN-GA and ANN-PSO models. Farmers, botanical researchers, and policymakers in food security can use these results

Efficacy of Post-Exposure Prophylaxis in Infants Born to HBsAg Positive Mothers in Iran; Is It Authentic?

Background Hepatitis B infection is a universal concern. This infection can lead to chronic liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. Neonates born to HBsAg-positive mothers are at high risk of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, especially for HBeAg-positive mothers or neonates who have not received hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIg) and HBV vaccines. Objectives The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of post-exposure prophylaxis in these infants to prevent infection. Patients and Methods Thirty-eight infants born to HBsAg-positive mothers between September 2006 and September 2013 were followed. The investigation evaluated whether the standard prevention protocol of neonatal HBV transmission including HBIg at birth and receiving three doses of vaccine at birth and 2 and 6 months of age was performed, followed by post-vaccination tests (evaluation of HBsAg and HBsAb titer at 9 to 18 months of age) to determine subsequent infection. HBsAb titer ≥ 10 was considered as criterion for effectiveness of the prophylaxis procedure. The acquired data were analyzed using SPSS software (Version 18). The results are reported in descriptive tabulations. Results Ninety seven percent (97%) of infants received HBIg at birth in the hospital. Generally, all of them received the first, second and third doses of vaccine at birth, 2 months, and 6 months after birth, respectively. Information for 35 mothers infected with HBV and 38 infants was available. The mean age of the mothers was 30.3 years. The results indicated that 20% of mothers were HBeAg positive. HBsAg was positive in one (2.6%) infant born to an HBeAg-positive mother. Around 94% of infants’ HBsAb titers were ≥ 10, and 5.8% were reported as non-responders. Conclusions The vertical transmission prevention program used in the study population in Tehran, which had an appropriate sample size, is effective. Additional doses of the vaccine can be useful in raising the effectiveness of immunoprophylaxis for infants at high risk of HBV infection. Also, emphasis must be set on post-vaccination testing