The investigation of limiting factors of earnings management for companies’ listed Tehran stock exchange

The current study was to examine the limiting factors of earnings management for companies’ listed Tehran stock exchange. The study was a kind of applied, descriptive- correlative research. All listed companies in Tehran stock exchange were selected as  statistical population during 2009 to 2013. So, data was gathered by library method  and collected by systematic eliminated sampling method. The results show that there is  a significant inverse relationship between board size and earnings management in companies’ listed Tehran stock exchange. The result doesn’t show any significant relationship between dividend and earnings management in companies’ listed Tehran stock exchange.Keywords: real earnings management; accrual earnings management; discretionary accruals; non-discretionary accruals; intensive factor

A multidisciplinary approach to address climate-resilience, conservation and comfort in traditional architecture: The PROT3CT example

Traditional dwellings despite their environmental credentials, due to age, previous damage, and residents unable to afford even the limited maintenance allowed by restrictive legal framework, may offer poor thermal performance, which is expected to be further exacerbated by changing climate. More than 70% of Turkey’s built heritage stock is composed of traditional dwellings, which makes this stock able to create a major impact nationally on the building-related energy use, carbon emissions and population wellbeing. This research aims to develop an evidence-based multidisciplinary methodology for cost-effective retrofit of the traditional dwellings in Turkey, to improve energy performance, satisfy user expectations of comfort, and protect heritage value

Prediabetes management in the Middle East, Africa and Russia: Current status and call for action:

Most data on the burden of diabetes and prediabetes are from countries where local infrastructure can support reliable estimates of the burden of non-communicable diseases. Countries in the Middle ..

Vision, challenges and opportunities for a Plant Cell Atlas

With growing populations and pressing environmental problems, future economies will be increasingly plant-based. Now is the time to reimagine plant science as a critical component of fundamental science, agriculture, environmental stewardship, energy, technology and healthcare. This effort requires a conceptual and technological framework to identify and map all cell types, and to comprehensively annotate the localization and organization of molecules at cellular and tissue levels. This framework, called the Plant Cell Atlas (PCA), will be critical for understanding and engineering plant development, physiology and environmental responses. A workshop was convened to discuss the purpose and utility of such an initiative, resulting in a roadmap that acknowledges the current knowledge gaps and technical challenges, and underscores how the PCA initiative can help to overcome them.</jats:p

An Experimental Study of Detailed Flow and Heat Transfer Analysis in a Single Row Narrow Impingement Channel

An experimental investigation of detailed flow and heat transfer in a narrow impingement channel was studied; the channel included 15 inline jets in a single row with a jet-totarget wall distance of 3 jet diameters. The spanwise length of the channel was 4 jet diameters, and a streamwise jet spacing of 5 jet diameters was considered for the current study. Both the flow physics and heat transfer tests were run at an average jet Reynolds number of 30,000. Temperature sensitive paint was used to study heat transfer at the target wall. Along with other parameters, jet-to-jet interaction in a narrow row impingement channel plays a significant role on heat transfer distribution at the side and target walls as the self-induced jet cross flow tends to bend the downstream jets. The present work shows detailed information of flow physics using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). PIV measurements were taken at planes normal to the target wall along the jet centerline for several jets. The flow field and heat transfer data was compared between the experiment and CFD in order to understand the relationship between flow characteristics and heat transfer. The experimental data gathered from PIV can be used as benchmark data for validating the current state of the art RANS turbulence models as well as for Large Eddy Simulation (LES)

Characteristics of weathering zones of granitic rocks in Malaysia for geotechnical engineering design

Tropical climatic conditions cause severe weathering to rock masses resulting in thick weathering profiles consisting of different weathering zones with complex characteristics. Feasible geotechnical engineering design requires a detailed understanding of the characteristics of each weathering zone. A typical weathering profile is usually characterized by field-scale observation and geological study. This paper presents the characteristics of weathering zones of various granitic rocks in the south of Malaysia. This region has a tropical climatic condition. The study was carried out in four active quarries located in Johor province, Malaysia, and forty sections were investigated in the study areas. A typical granitic weathering profile was characterized based on the geological and structural parameters (i.e. joint characteristics, corestone occurrence, rock/soil ratio, mass homogeneity, color of rock, and discoloration at joints' surfaces). The profile includes common zones ranging from fresh to residual soil; however, two subzones are introduced based on corestone (boulder) occurrence in the highly weathered and completely weathered zones. This study, based on detailed field observations at the mentioned quarries followed by analysis, presents an amalgamated picture of weathering zones in granitic profiles of a tropical region like Malaysia. Moreover, it is believed that the characterization of the typical weathering profile allows further classification of generally complex weathered rock masses for a specific geotechnical engineering design. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Uniaxial compressive strength prediction through a new technique based on gene expression programming

Proper estimation of rock strength is a critical task for evaluation and design of some geotechnical applications such as tunneling and excavation. Uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) test can be measured directly in the laboratory; nevertheless, the direct UCS determination is time-consuming and expensive. In this study, feasibility of gene expression programming (GEP) model in indirect determination of UCS values of sandstone rock samples is examined. In this regard, several laboratory tests including Brazilian test, density test, slake durability test and UCS test were conducted on 47 samples of sandstone which were collected from the Dengkil, Malaysia. Considering multiple inputs, several GEP models were constructed to estimate UCS of the rock and finally, the best GEP model was selected. In order to indicate capability of the proposed GEP model, linear multiple regression (LMR) was also performed. It was found that the GEP model is superior to LMR one in terms of applied performance indices. Based on coefficient of determination (R2) of testing datasets, by proposing GEP model, it can be improved from 0.930 (which was obtained by LMR model) to 0.965. As a result, it is concluded that the proposed models in this study, could be utilized to estimate UCS of similar rock type in practice