Sharif Digital Repository

This article aims to provide new insights into trade effects of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA), using an imperfect competition framework. The model combines the new gravity model approach with supply-demand export equations in imperfect competition. In this regard, the role of scale economies, product varieties and expectations is explored. Facing the lack of international data on scale economies, we also develop a translog production system which makes it possible to obtain reliable estimates of this factor. For a more rigorous treatment of the endogeneity problem in the model, we make use of an instrumental GMM panel estimator. Results show limited effects of GAFTA on regional... 

Economists and policy-makers believe that the Fiscal Decentralization is an effective strategy to promote economic growth. Thereby Economic Growth is seen as an objective of Fiscal Decentralization and efficiency in the allocation of resources in the public sector. This study analyzed the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth in Iran for the period 2001-2007.We used data for 28 provinces of the country estimated the model using a panel data regression with Fixed Effect. We find that fiscal decentralization has a positive effect on Iran's economic growth  

Over the past decade, the power industry in many countries around the world has been undergoing massive changes to introduce competition. In power systems under transmission open access, an optimal schedule of generation of units to satisfy the demand at the minimum production and transmission costs with consideration of system operation constraints is an important issue. In this paper, a method for centralized economic dispatch in deregulated power systems is presented. The considered constraints are minimum and maximum power generation of units, capacity of transmission lines and ramp rate limits. Genetic algorithm is used to solve a nonlinear objective function. Simulations are performed... 

This book focuses on a central question in the field of complex systems: Given a fluctuating (in time or space), uni- or multi-variant sequentially measured set of experimental data (even noisy data), how should one analyse non-parametrically the data, assess underlying trends, uncover characteristics of the fluctuations (including diffusion and jump contributions), and construct a stochastic evolution equation?
Here, the term "non-parametrically" exemplifies that all the functions and parameters of the constructed stochastic evolution equation can be determined directly from the measured data.
The book provides an overview of methods that have been developed for the analysis of... 

This paper considers a two-level supply chain consisting of one warehouse and one retailer. Unlike the most similar models which determine the optimal ordering policy according to inventory cost only, in this model, we also consider the transportation cost. We assume that the demand rate at the retailer is known and the demand is confined to a single item. Shortages are allowed neither at the retailer nor at the warehouse. The objective is to find the economic order quantities for both the retailer and the warehouse which minimize the total cost. That is. the sum of the holding and ordering cost at the retailer and warehouse as well as the transportation cost from warehouse to retailer.... 

Stock return is usually considered to be affected by firm's financial ratios as well as economic variables. Fundamental method assume that stock returns is not solely related to the stock market. Most result come from the company condition, industry situation and whole economy. In this paper, this relationship between stock return and fundamentals is studied using the data for 22 pharmaceutical companies in Tehran Stock Exchange over a 7 year period, and effective factors on stock return are investigated. Because of our data natural we used panel data model from econometric methods. The results show that 80 pecent of change in stock return can be explained with 9 fundamental variables... 

With increasing concern of environmental protection and economic considerations, Wind energy has drawn much attention recently due to its high benefits to the reduction of emissions and reduction of dependency on fossil fuels. In this paper, a load dispatch model is developed for the system consisting of both thermal generators and wind turbine by GAMS Software and the recently introduced optimization strategy, Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA). In addition, transmission loss is considered which approximate the system losses as a quadratic function of the real power generation with B-losses coefficients. To better represent the conditions in real power systems, the cost of modern... 

Economic design of a control chart involves determining its basic parameters such that a cost function is minimized. This design when statistical performance measures are also considered is referred to as the economic-statistical design. In this paper, a simplex-based Nelder-Mead algorithm is used in combination with a particle swarm meta-heuristic procedure to solve both the economic and economic-statistical designs of a MEWMA control chart. The application results on extensive simulation experiments show that the particle swarm can lead the Nelder-Mead algorithm to better results. Furthermore, a comparative study is performed on the performances of three different algorithms of the... 

The raising trend both in violent and property crime are of major concern in Iran. Using a panel data modeling (province wide), the paper provides an econometrics assessment of the relationship between crime against properties and violent crimes as functions of deterrent, social, economic and demographic factors in Iran, in the framework of Becker-Ehrlich crime supply theory. The findings indicate that, although deterrence hypothesis is not confirmed for burglary and assault, it explains the variations of murders and threats. Economic factors play key role in burglary and threat explanation, but they do not affect willful murders, however, Literacy explains both murders and threats. Average... 

This paper studies the economic impact of using inaccurate price forecasts on self-scheduling of generation companies (GenCos) in a competitive electricity market. Four alternative sets of price forecasts are used in this study which have different levels of accuracy. The economic impact of price forecast inaccuracies is calculated by comparing the economic benefits of the GenCos in two self-scheduling scenarios. In the first scenario, electricity market price forecasts are used to optimally schedule the GenCos' next day operation. In the second scenario, perfect price forecasts, i.e., actual market prices, are used for self-scheduling of the GenCos. Two indices are utilized to quantify the... 

In this study, treatment of two real produced waters was studied using microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration. In the first step, the effects of operating parameters including temperature, transmembrane pressure (TMP), cross-flow velocity (CFV), and back pulse time (BPT) (in the MF system) at three levels on the amount of permeate flux were investigated using ceramic and polymeric membranes. To design the experiments and optimize the experimental results, the L9 (34) and L9 (33) orthogonal arrays of the Taguchi method and a response category of the-larger-the-better were applied. Analysis of variance was used to determine the most important parameters affecting the permeate flux. The... 

Biosurfactants are surface-active compounds capable of reducing surface tension and interfacial tension. Biosurfactants are produced by various microorganisms. They are promising replacements for chemical surfactants because of biodegradability, nontoxicity, and their ability to be produced from renewable sources. However, a major obstacle in producing biosurfactants at the industrial level is the lack of cost-effectiveness. In the present study, by using corn steep liquor (CSL) as a low-cost agricultural waste, not only is the production cost reduced but a higher production yield is also achieved. Moreover, a response surface methodology (RSM) approach through the Box-Behnken method was... 

Employing profiles using variable sample size (VSS) may improve its effectiveness and hence is investigated in this paper. Besides, the implementation cost of a profile is an important factor in determining the main parameters. In this paper, the Lorenzen-Vance function is first extended to model implementation cost of VSS linear profiles. Then, the resulted economic model is solved using a genetic algorithm (GA). The average run length criterion when process is in control, ARL0 and the average run length measure when process goes out of control, ARL1 , is used to evaluate statistical properties of the designed profile. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis on the main parameters of the... 

In this study, treatment of two real produced waters was studied using microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration. In the first step, the effects of operating parameters including temperature, transmembrane pressure (TMP), cross-flow velocity (CFV), and back pulse time (BPT) (in the MF system) at three levels on the amount of permeate flux were investigated using ceramic and polymeric membranes. To design the experiments and optimize the experimental results, the L9 (34) and L9 (33) orthogonal arrays of the Taguchi method and a response category of the-larger-the-better were applied. Analysis of variance was used to determine the most important parameters affecting the permeate flux. The... 

A process of ethanol production from wheat straw in Iran was simulated using SuperPro Designer. Wheat is the main cereal crop in Iran. Khuzestan Province was selected as a potential location for the construction of plant. A method was developed to estimate the plant capacity. The base plant size in Khuzestan was estimated to be 316 t day−1. The effect of plant size, logistics of residue collection, wheat yield, and agreements with local farmers on the profitability was calculated, and the minimum selling price was determined for different scenarios. In addition, the sensitivity analysis and economic risk assessment were conducted. The operating cost was mainly sensitive to the wheat straw... 

In recent years, a growing interest in investigation of new energies has been observed. Pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO) could be a feasible source of renewable energy. This study aims to present a model based on the present technology of PRO power plant components for design and economic evaluation of a PRO power plant, and to investigate case studies in order to demonstrate how each main component of a PRO power plant affects the economic evaluation. Therefore, all the mechanisms including intake and outfall systems, pre-treatment system, membrane system, and transportation and generation systems are explicated and meant to present the capability of the model to design the PRO power plant.... 

A process of ethanol production from wheat straw in Iran was simulated using SuperPro Designer. Wheat is the main cereal crop in Iran. Khuzestan Province was selected as a potential location for the construction of plant. A method was developed to estimate the plant capacity. The base plant size in Khuzestan was estimated to be 316 t day−1. The effect of plant size, logistics of residue collection, wheat yield, and agreements with local farmers on the profitability was calculated, and the minimum selling price was determined for different scenarios. In addition, the sensitivity analysis and economic risk assessment were conducted. The operating cost was mainly sensitive to the wheat straw...