Search results

To gain and differentiate competitive advantage, the sustainable service quality is a determining factor that railway companies can use. The purpose of this study is to identify both the importance and performance of rail transportation service quality factors in a case study as well as determine the most influential quality features.

A comprehensive approach namely importance–performance analysis (IPA) technique and decision-making trail and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL), and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and Matriced’ Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliquée á un Classement (MICMAC) techniques was utilized.

The relative position of each attribute is specified on the IPA matrix proposing four strategies of concentrate here, keep up the good work, low priority and possible overkill. This study reveals that attributes of “the company cares about having a good society” are the most influential factor, and “having good business relations with shareholders” is the most permeable factor. Actually, consumers pay attention to how companies act toward society and maintain communication with shareholders. Through ISM technique and by summing the row and column of the consistency matrix, the attributes were partitioned into four levels. Also, MICMAC analysis identified the four clusters of linkage, independent, autonomous and dependent status of the attributes in terms of the driving power and dependence power.

Due to the nature of single case study methodology, caution should be taken into consideration regarding the generazability of the obtained results.

The hybrid DEMATEL-ISM technique is used to analyze service quality factors in Iran’s transportation industry, which can be utilized in other industries as well as other countries.

This paper presents a combined method of ensemble learning and genetics to rebalance the corporate portfolio. The primary purpose of this paper is to determine the amount of investment in each of the shares of the listed company and the time of purchase, holding or sale of shares to maximize total return and reduce investment risk.

To achieve the goals of the problem, a two-level combined intelligent method, such as a support vector machine, decision tree, network Bayesian, k-nearest neighbors and multilayer perceptron neural network as heterogeneous basic models of ensemble learning in the first level, was applied. Then, the majority vote method (weighted average) in the second stage as the final model of learning was collectively used. Therefore, the data collected from 208 listed companies active in the Tehran stock exchange (http://tsetmc.com) from 2011 to 2015 have been used to teach the data. For testing and analysis, the data of the same companies between 2016 and 2020 have been used.

The results showed that the method of combined ensemble learning and genetics has the highest total stock portfolio yield of 114.12%, with a risk of 0.905%. Also, by examining the rate of return on capital, it was observed that the proposed method has the highest average rate of return on investment of 110.64%. As a result, the proposed method leads to higher returns with lower risk than the purchase and maintenance method for fund managers and companies and predicts market trends.

In the forthcoming research, there were no limitations to obtain research data were easily extracted from the site of Tehran Stock Exchange Technology Management Company and Rahvard Novin software, and simulation was performed in MATLAB software.

In this paper, using combined machine learning methods, companies’ stock prices are predicted and stock portfolio optimization is optimized. As companies and private organizations are trying to increase their rate of return, so they need a way to predict stock prices based on specific indicators. It turned out that this algorithm has the highest stock portfolio return with reasonable investment risk, and therefore, investors, portfolio managers and market timers can be used this method to optimize the stock portfolio.

The homogeneous and heterogeneous two-level hybrid model presented in the research can be used to predict market trends by market timers and fund managers. Also, adjusting the portfolio with this method has a much higher return than the return on buying and holding, and with controlled risk, it increases the security of investors’ capital, and investors invest their capital in the funds more safely. And will achieve their expected returns. As a result, the psychological security gained from using this method for portfolio arrangement will eventually lead to the growth of the capital market.

This paper tries to present the best combination of stock portfolios of active companies of the Tehran Stock Exchange by using the two-level combined intelligent method and genetic algorithm.

The ongoing economic impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic upon national and international economies has provided a novel set of challenges and barriers for organisations; particularly for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This has led to an increased focus on sustainable decision-making and long-term survival and growth strategies, such as internationalisation opportunities, for SMEs during obscure times and fluctuating economies. Thus, examining how SMEs within ambiguous economies are adopting innovative decision-making to continue to sustain and grow their enterprises provides a vital perspective and understanding of not only enterprise survival but enterprise growth during times of economic uncertainty. This chapter proposes a conceptual framework that explores internationalisation opportunities through an intersectional lens. The framework depicts that intersectionality as an enabler during ambiguous times for Maldivian women entrepreneurs generates innovative decision-making towards internationalisation as part of sustainable growth practices. The conceptual framework offers theoretical implications for empirical studies of an inductive or deductive nature and offers pragmatic importance for women entrepreneurs considering internationalisation through sustainable growth during obscure times and fluctuating economies. This chapter contributes to the growing body of knowledge in the field of international entrepreneurship, particularly innovative decision-making, and sustainable growth through internationalisation opportunities of women entrepreneurs, whilst advancing our understanding of gender and entrepreneurship studies. Studying innovative decision-making and sustainable growth practices of women entrepreneurs additionally provides a new perspective on intersectional works within entrepreneurial growth during uncertain times.

Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent malignancies worldwide. This study aimed to compare the level of knowledge and attitude of females regarding Breast cancer and to determine the role of knowledge, attitude and barriers in performing regular self-examination.

Non-physician females aged 18 years old or above were enrolled in this cross-sectional study in two groups of usual clients and healthcare staff from January 2018 to January 2019 from a healthcare center in Sari, a major city in the northern district of Iran. A questionnaire was used to score the participants’ knowledge and attitude levels using questions about the participants' knowledge and attitude towards Breast cancer along with their status on Breast self-examination and barriers. Mean scores were used for statistical analysis using SPSS V25. p < 0.05 was considered significant.

A final dataset of 279 females were collected. A significant difference in the knowledge and attitude regarding breast cancer was found between the two study groups (p < 0.001). The practice of BSE was significantly lower in the usual clients compared to non-physician healthcare staff (p < 0.001). The most frequent barriers for not performing a regular BSE were fear of finding a mass in usual clients (17.8%) and lack of confidence in healthcare staff (3.8%).

Limitations include single-centered sample selection.

Given the importance of early detection in breast cancer prevention and the general taboo regarding breast cancer screening methods in certain parts of the world, leading to poor results in early detection and prevention, the authors believe that it is of superior importance to address and promote positive attitudes in general population towards breast self-examination.

Given the importance of early detection in breast cancer prevention, and the general taboo regarding breast cancer screening methods in certain parts of the world, leading to poor results in early detection and prevention, the authors believe that it is of superior importance to address and promote positive attitudes in general population toward breast self-examination. The authors of this study believe that the manuscript represents honest and original work.

The purpose of this study is to discover the components of virtual leadership in universities and higher education institutions during Covid-19 pandemic.

This research uses the qualitative research design, and semi-structured interviews with senior leaders were conducted with non-random purposeful and snowball sampling methods. Also, grounded theory was used for analyzing, coding and classifying the data.

After analyzing data, five main components influencing virtual leadership including leader's personality traits, followers' characteristics, technological, environmental and organizational components were identified.

As leadership, particularly virtual leadership, highly depends on context such as the level of technology in that certain region, the results cannot be generalized to other sectors or countries.

The research advances leadership development theory by highlighting the main components of virtual leadership in educational sector as a comprehensive perspective and complement the other aspects of virtual leadership such as consequences and challenges investigated by other studies.

This paper aims to explore the extent to which the internet has created new opportunities for Iranian women in Tehran. It analyses both challenges and opportunities offered to Iranian women by the internet as a means of economic empowerment.

This paper adopts a qualitative approach and based on 13 semi-structured interviews with female internet users between the ages of 20 and 55 years. The qualitative data was collected through open-ended questions in face-to-face interviews. This study uses ethnography as a research tool to explore the question of whether the internet has made a difference in the economic lives of Iranian women.

Result reveals that the internet and working online have significant impact on the economic lives of Tehrani women by enabling them to engage in new forms of online business. This technology is being used for online advertising to attract more clients, to establish business contacts with peers and to manage households positively.

The result of the research cannot be regarded as applicable to all women in Iran, as the opportunity to access online economic activities is only available to those women who are highly trained and well-educated. In addition, the result of the research may not reflect the barriers that women from different social classes and ethnic groups have faced in the achievement of economic empowerment online.

The study highlights that due to a generally lack of computer proficiency, women in these areas are unable to effectively maximise their participation in the online economic sphere. This barrier must be removed by enhancing women’s computer literacy and ICT (information, communication and technologies) and establishing development networking programme centres for internet skills training.

The internet has created opportunity for Iranian women to expand their participation in the online economic sphere. However, research in the field of online economic activities in Iran, especially concerning women working online, is scant. The key contribution of this paper is to fill the gap in this area of study, in particular offering insights into the ways in which women use the internet to overcome the boundaries of physical space and become empowered.

Resilience can be of assistance to paramedics in order to maintain their own mental balance in stressful work environments. Since it is not well defined which personality traits are correlated with resilience in these personnel, the purpose of this paper is to explain the relationship between personality traits and levels of resilience.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on paramedics in Eastern Iran through field research. The study participants were selected by convenience sampling method. The data collection instruments included NEO-Five Factor Inventory-Short Form and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. The data obtained were also analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (correlation and regression analysis) through the SPSS 16.0 software.

A total of 252 paramedics with a mean age of 28.9±5.1 years participated in this study. The personality traits of neuroticism (r=−0.24), openness to experience (r=−0.22), and agreeableness (r=−0.18) were significantly correlated with resilience. In contrast, extraversion (r=0.26) and conscientiousness (r=0.32) were in a significant relationship with resilience. In this respect, the given personality traits could account for 31.5 percent of changes in resilience.

It was concluded that the paramedics with lower scores of neuroticism had higher levels of resilience and they could similarly show better compliance with their work conditions in stressful situations and consequently maintain their mental health.

It is recommended to conduct psychological examinations of personality traits in recruitment and selection stages of medical emergency personnel and to implement psychological interventions for those medical emergency staff with the personality trait of neuroticism.

Resilient paramedics may also perceive less stress and it may be negatively associated with burnout.

The study examined the relationship between personality traits and resiliency in order to clarifying recruitment criteria in emergency medical services.