The main objective of this paper is to study the effects of haversinse and triangular loading waveforms on the fatigue life of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) specimens. Effects of load duration, rest period and stress level are also studied for the asphalt mixtures at 25oC. An indirect tensile test with strain control was performed to determine the fatigue life of asphalt. The fatigue tests were performed at two stress levels (170 and 250 kPa), two waveforms (haversine and triangle), three load duration (100, 200, 400 ms), and two rest period to load duration ratios (4 and 9). The obtained results showed that fatigue life of haversine waveform is less than fatigue life of triangle waveform. As the area under the loading curve is increased (stress level is increased or deformed), effect of rest period on the fatigue life decreases. On the other hand, as the tire contact area is increased, the induced tire pressure reduction decreases its destructive effects on the asphalt layer. As the load duration is decreased, fatigue life will increase. This effect is more pronounced for lower stress levels than the higher stress levels.

The essence of moving the organizations and companies toward the implementation of the Business Intelligence (BI) in the current competitive and complex atmosphere is not unfamiliar for any manager. By online analytic processing, the Business Intelligence analyzes the business data and creates a suitable context for making accurate and smart decisions. Neither as a product nor as a system but as the architecture and a new approach, the Business Intelligence has contained a set of analytic and applied programs. Since the managers have to identify the required infrastructures in creating the mentioned architecture before any applicable measures, the probable failures must be also considered and then solved by the managers. This study has been carried out in the Mellat Bank, meanwhile, the infrastructures for creating the BI has been identified and evaluated and subsequently, the findings has been discussed as well.

This paper presents an approach of linking finite element method with artificial neural network to predict J-Integral parameter in desirable airfoil condition. Finite Element (FE) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) have been employed for the purpose. In other words, a prediction of finite element results has been done using ANN. Ultimately results of two methods have been compared for different cases. Wing fracture is a well-known problem of the planes which depends on various parameters. The J-integral is a vital parameter in evaluations of structure fracture phenomena. On the other hand residual stresses play an influential role in fracture formation. In the current work, effect of residual stresses and crack depth on J-Integral has been investigated in a standard NACA0012-34 airfoil. As will be seen, residual stresses and crack depth influence J-Integral values. It also will be shown that predictions of ANN method are in a good agreement with those obtained by finite element method.

This paper presents an empirical study to investigate different factors for commercializing ideas in food industry. The study uses structural equation modeling, by designing a questionnaire in Likert scale, and distributes it among 218 randomly selected experts in food industry in city of Tehran, Iran. Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.864, which is well above the acceptable level. The study uses structural equation modeling as well as some descriptive tests to examine the hypotheses of the survey. The results confirm that management of ideas, the feasibility of the ideas, market research and advocacy strategies influence the most on commercializing ideas in food industry.

The present paper summarizes the results from uniaxial-tension stress-controlled fatigue tests performed at different temperatures up to 650°C on Cu-Be specimens. Two geometries are considered: hourglass shaped and plates weakened by a central hole (Cu-Be alloy). The motivation of the present work is that, at the best of authors’ knowledge, only a limited number of papers on these alloys under high-temperature fatigue are available in the literature and no results deal with notched components. The Cu-Be specimens fatigue data are re-analyzed in terms of the mean value of the Strain Energy Density (SED) averaged over a control volume. Thanks to the SED approach it is possible to summarize in a single scatter-band all the fatigue data, independently of the specimen geometry.

In recent years, there have been significant changes on governmental agencies than any other organizations. There is also an agreement that any improvement on economy requires an efficient government. Governments must be responsive against their people and society but there are evidences that many governmental agencies are not able to meet people’s needs despite access to financial resources because of lack of entrepreneurial approach. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the role of entrepreneurship governmental groups on macro-economic strategies. The study uses structural equation modeling, by designing a questionnaire in Likert scale, and distributes it among 384 randomly selected university professors in city of Tehran, Iran. The results confirm that technology-based economy, creative human resources and training, competition in the economic environment, knowledge creation, dissemination and application and promoting a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship influence positively on entrepreneurship governmental groups. In addition, the positive effects of entrepreneurship governmental groups on national commitment and management are confirmed.

This paper derives a semi-analytical solution to determine displacements and stresses in a thick cylindrical shell with variable thickness under uniform pressure based on disk form multilayers. The proposed study partitions the thick cylinder into disk-layer parts based on their thickness of the cylinder. According to the existence of shear stress in the thick cylindrical shell with variable thickness, the equations governing disk layers are acquired based on first shear deformation theory (FSDT), which are in the form of a set of general differential equations. In this study, the cylinder is partitioned into n different disks and n sets of differential equations are derived. The solution of these equations provides displacements and stresses based on the boundary conditions and continuity conditions between the layers. The results are compared with those obtained through the analytical solution and the numerical solution. For the purpose of the analytical solution, matched asymptotic method (MAM) and for the analytical solution, the finite element method (FEM are implemented.

Consumer perception plays essential role for market development. Consumer perception can be defined as a marketing concept, which includes a customer & apos; s impression, awareness and/or consciousness about a firm or its offerings. This paper investigates the effect of customer relationship management factors on consumer perception in Iranian banking industry. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 300 randomly selected managers who worked for Bank Saderat Iran. Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.788, which is well above the minimum acceptable level. Using principal component analysis, the study has determined that six factors influences the most on consumer perception; namely: Customer oriented, Organizational strategy, Organizational resources, Organizational structure and Organizational culture.

A value chain is a chain of necessary activities that a company operating in a specific industry executes in order to deliver a valuable product or service for the market. Value chain plays essential role for development of a successful business unit. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of value chain on capabilities of knowledge production, implementation and distribution. The impact is also studied for effective knowledge implementation for economic development. Using historical economic data of World Bank database gathered from member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the study has detected positive and meaningful effects of Value Chain Presence on Knowledge Economy Index and Knowledge Index.

The purpose of conducting this research is to establish a conceptual model to improve the performance of new product development in organizations regarding variables of disruptive innovation, team vision, knowledge management, and fuzzy-front end. In this research, the structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to study the model. Also, the explanatory and confirmatory factor analysis are used to extract dimensions of fuzzy-front end and disruptive innovation variables. Research data have been gathered from 109 experts of development and research department of Iran Khodro manufacturing company. The results of research show that disruptive innovation may have very impressive effects on new product development performance. Also, team approach has direct effect on fuzzy-front end. On the other hand, knowledge management has a key role in new product development and organizations can increase the efficiency of new product development by managing their knowledge and sharing them and guarantee the organization success.