Iranian Angle to Non-Audit Services: Some Empirical Evidence

The purpose of this paper is to show different Iranian accountants’ as well shareholders’ ideas on Non-audit services and their effects on audit independence in Iran. In other words, in this paper the authors have attempted to deal with this question: does providing non-audit services by an Iranian auditor impair audit independence? And in order to gather usable data a suitable questionnaire was designed and developed. The results of this study show that the participants strongly believe that non-audit services may impair audit independence. It is interesting to note that, although the auditors offer to clients non-audit services, they believe that offering such services leads to audit independence being questionable. Further, the result reveals that literate participants moderately agree that NAS has a negative effect on audit independence, however illiterate participants strongly agree that NAS has a negative affect on audit independence. This paper is the first paper which includes two groups of participants: the first group is auditors in general, or we can call them academiciana with pretensions to having auditing literacy and the second group is non- academician, including stakeholders who may not have auditing literacy skills. This may useful for future studies regarding the non-audit service and its effect on audit independence.auditor, independence, non-audit services, Iran

Conformal Invariance and Quantum Aspects of Matter

The vacuum sector of the Brans-Dicke theory is studied from the viewpoint of a non-conformally invariant gravitational model. We show that, this theory can be conformally symmetrized using an appropriate conformal transformation. The resulting theory allows a particle interpretation, and suggests that the quantum aspects of matter may be geometrized.Comment: 6 page

Enhancing the Spontaneous Imbibition Process in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs through Wettability Alteration Using Surfactants: Mechanistic Study and Feasibility of Using Biosurfactants Produced from Agriculture Waste Streams

Naturally fractured reservoirs are characterized by having low-permeability matrix blocks surrounded with fractures of high hydraulic conductivity. Waterflooding process in such reservoirs is successful if the matrix blocks holding the dominant fraction of the reservoir porosity are able to imbibe the injected water (water-wet) and expel the oil into the fracture system and finally to the production well. This mechanism referred to as spontaneous imbibition of water into the matrix blocks is an efficient method to increase oil recovery from fractured reservoirs. However, most naturally fractured reservoir rocks are mixed- to oil-wet and do not imbibe the injected water, which translates into low-efficiency waterflood recovery. To enhance the spontaneous imbibition process, low concentration of surfactants is dissolved into the injected water to induce wettability alteration of the reservoir rock by changing the wettability of the rock toward a more water-wet state. This is the main subject of this research study. The first part of this study was devoted to evaluating and comparing the effectiveness of using a biosurfactant (surfactin) produced from agriculture waste streams against a benchmark chemical surfactant in mediating the wettability of oil-wet rocks. The ability of surfactants to enhance the spontaneous imbibition process in cleaned and crude oil-aged reservoir core plugs was tested. One of the other factors that needs to be considered is the estimation of the loss of surfactants due to adsorption onto the reservoir rock, because for the process to be effective, the injected surfactant solution should be able to penetrate deep into the reservoir. So, in this work, static and dynamic adsorption isotherms for both biosurfactant and benchmark chemical surfactants on crushed reservoir rocks and reservoir core plugs were generated and compared. The second part of the study focused on the mechanistic study of wettability alteration by surfactants. There are two main mechanisms proposed for the wettability alteration process, but none have been verified. This study is focused on investigating the wettability alteration mechanisms though experimental observations. The results of the work will provide better guidelines in designing and improving water flood performance in naturally fractured reservoirs. It was verified that wettability alteration is caused by either surfactant adsorption or the ion-pair formation between the surfactant monomer and the material adsorbed on the reservoir rock from exposure to crude oil. It was further demonstrated that the ion-pair process can be improved by increasing the charge density of the head-group in the surfactant molecule

Bayesian-Based Predictive Analytics for Manufacturing Performance Metrics in the Era of Industry 4.0

The research in this dissertation proposes Bayesian-based predictive analytics for modeling and prediction of the manufacturing metrics such as cutting force, tool life and reliability in the technological era of Industry 4.0. Bayesian statistics is a probabilistic method, which can quantify and minimize manufacturing process uncertainties. The Bayesian method combines previous knowledge about the manufacturing models with experimental data to predict the manufacturing metrics

Finite Horizon Throughput Maximization for a Wirelessly Powered Device over a Time Varying Channel

In this work, we consider an energy harvesting device (EHD) served by an access point with a single antenna that is used for both wireless power transfer (WPT) and data transfer. The objective is to maximize the expected throughput of the EHD over a finite horizon when the channel state information is only available causally. The EHD is energized by WPT for a certain duration, which is subject to optimization, and then, EHD transmits its information bits to the AP until the end of the time horizon by employing optimal dynamic power allocation. The joint optimization problem is modeled as a dynamic programming problem. Based on the characteristic of the problem, we prove that a time dependent threshold type structure exists for the optimal WPT duration, and we obtain closed form solution to the dynamic power allocation in the uplink period.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1804.0183

Nonlinear Vibration Analysis of Axially Functionally Graded Microbeams Based on Nonlinear Elastic Foundation Using Modified Couple Stress Theory

In this study, a non-classical approach was developed to analyze nonlinear free and forced vibration of an Axially Functionally Graded (AFG) microbeam by means of modified couple stress theory. The beam is considered as Euler-Bernoulli type supported on a three-layered elastic foundation with Von-Karman geometric nonlinearity. Small size effects included in the analysis by considering the length scale parameter. It is assumed that the mass density and elasticity modulus varies continuously in the axial direction according to the power law form. Hamilton's principle was implemented to derive the nonlinear governing partial differential equation concerning associated boundary conditions. The nonlinear partial differential equation was reduced to some nonlinear ordinary differential equations via Galerkin's discretization technique. He's Variational iteration methods were implemented to obtain approximate analytical expressions for the frequency response as well as the forced vibration response of the microbeam with doubly-clamped end conditions. In this study, some factors influencing the forced vibration response were investigated. Specifically, the influence of the length scale parameter, the length of the microbeam, the power index, the Winkler parameter, the Pasternak parameter, and the nonlinear parameter on the nonlinear natural frequency as well as the amplitude of forced response have been investigated