Publication Date: 2009
Genomics, Proteomics And Bioinformatics (16720229)7(3)pp. 87-95
Leishmania is associated with a broad spectrum of diseases, ranging from simple cutaneous to invasive visceral leishmaniasis. Here, the sequences of ten cysteine proteases of types A, B and C of Leishmania major were obtained from GeneDB database. Prediction of MHC class I epitopes of these cysteine proteases was performed by NetCTL program version 1.2. In addition, by using BcePred server, different structural properties of the proteins were predicted to find out their potential B cell epitopes. According to this computational analysis, nine regions were predicted as B cell epitopes. The results provide useful information for designing peptide-based vaccines. © 2009 Beijing Genomics Institute.
Publication Date: 2011
Economic Modelling (02649993)28(1-2)pp. 694-700
Davoudi-dehaghani, E.,
Foroughmand, A.M.,
Saffari, B.,
Houshmand, M.,
Galehdari, H.,
Shariat panahi, M.S.,
Yavarian, M.,
Sanati, M.H.,
Torfi, S. Publication Date: 2011
Frontiers in Biology (16747992)6(5)pp. 422-432
To investigate the genetic structure of human populations in the South-west region of Iran, mitochondrial first hypervariable DNA sequences were obtained from 50 individuals representing three different ethnic groups from Khuzestan Province. Studied groups were Shushtari Persians and Chahar Lang Bakhtiyaries from Indo-European-speaking populations and Bani Torof Arabs from Semitic-speaking linguistic families. Genetic analysis of mtDNA data showed high similarity of Chahar Lang Bakhtiyaries with other Iranian Indo-European-speaking populations while Shushtaries and Bani Torofs had a closer affinity with Semitic-speaking groups rather than to other Iranian populations. The relationship of Chahar Lang Bakhtiyaries and Bani Torof Arabs with their neighbor populations can be explained by linguistic and geographic proximity. Whereas, the greater similarity of Shushtari Persians with West Asian Arabs is probably according to high gene flow between them. This article represents a preliminary study of three major ethnic groups of South-west Iran which investigates the potential genetic substructure of the region. © 2011 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
Mohsenzadeh, S.,
Esmaeili, M.,
Moosavi, F.,
Shahrtash, M.,
Saffari, B.,
Mohabatkar, H. Publication Date: 2011
African Journal of Biotechnology (16845315)10(42)pp. 8160-8165
Glutathione S-transferases are multifunctional proteins involved in diverse intracellular events such as primary and secondary metabolisms, stress metabolism, herbicide detoxification and plant protection against ozone damages, heavy metals and xenobiotics. The plant glutathione S-transferase superfamily have been subdivided into eight classes. Phi, tau, zeta, theta, lambda, dehydroascorbate reductase and tetrachlorohydroquinone dehalogenase classes are soluble and one class is microsomal. Glutathione S-transferases are mostly soluble cytoplasmic enzymes. To date, the crystal structures of over 200 soluble glutathione S-transferases, present in plants, animals and bacteria have been resolved. The structures of glutathione S-transferase influence its function. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that all soluble glutathione S-transferases have arisen from an ancient progenitor gene, through both convergent and divergent pathways. © 2011 Academic Journals.
Publication Date: 2011
Economic Computation and Economic Cybernetics Studies and Research (0424267X)2pp. 177-189
Ramsey Optimal Growth model is widely used in dynamic macroeconomics. Graduate and undergraduate students have problem in doing with Ramsey Model. In this paper we try to solve Ramsey model using Genetic Algorithm. Genetic Algorithm is a new optimization approach that is widely used in dynamic analysis. It seems that solving optimization problems with GA approach will produce better results than Excel solver.
Saffari, B.,
Jouyan, N.,
Bahari, M.,
Senemar, S.,
Yavarian, M. Publication Date: 2012
EXCLI Journal (16112156)11pp. 407-415
Plasminogen activator inhibitor type-2 (PAI-2) is a serine protease inhibitor of the fibrinolytic system produced predominantly by the macrophages and monocytes. It has been demonstrated that fibrinolysis regulation has a great importance in the pathogenesis of atherosclerotic plaques. Thus in the current investigation, we sought to determine whether Ser 413/Cys polymorphism (rs6104) of PAI-2 gene could be associated with atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk factors. Ser 413/Cys polymorphism was determined by PCR-RFLP technique using Mwo I restriction enzyme for 184 men under 50 years of age and 216 women less than 55 years of age who underwent diagnostic coronary angiography. Data on the history of familial myocardial infarction or other heart diseases, hypertension, and smoking habit were collected by a simple questionnaire. Fasting levels of blood sugar, triglycerides, total cholesterol, lowdensity lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were also measured by enzymatic methods. Frequencies of the Ser 413 and Cys 413 alleles were 0.760 and 0.240 in the whole population, respectively. The PAI-2 gene variant analyzed was not significantly associated with either the prevalence of premature CAD or the classical risk factors of CAD development such as diabetes, serum cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein and highdensity lipoprotein cholesterol, body mass index, hypertension, familial history of heart dysfunction or smoking.
Publication Date: 2012
ACS Chemical Neuroscience (19487193)pp. 407-415
Plasminogen activator inhibitor type-2 (PAI-2) is a serine protease inhibitor of the fibrinolytic system produced predominantly by the macrophages and monocytes. It has been demonstrated that fibrinolysis regulation has a great importance in the pathogenesis of atherosclerotic plaques. Thus in the current investigation, we sought to determine whether Ser(413)/Cys polymorphism (rs6104) of PAI-2 gene could be associated with atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk factors. Ser(413)/Cys polymorphism was determined by PCR-RFLP technique using Mwo I restriction enzyme for 184 men under 50 years of age and 216 women less than 55 years of age who underwent diagnostic coronary angiography. Data on the history of familial myocardial infarction or other heart diseases, hypertension, and smoking habit were collected by a simple questionnaire. Fasting levels of blood sugar, triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were also measured by enzymatic methods. Frequencies of the Ser(413) and Cys(413) alleles were 0.760 and 0.240 in the whole population, respectively. The PAI-2 gene variant analyzed was not significantly associated with either the prevalence of premature CAD or the classical risk factors of CAD development such as diabetes, serum cholesterol, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, body mass index, hypertension, familial history of heart dysfunction or smoking.
According to the popularity of variant video streaming applications over the Internet, video quality assessment is essential for network operators in order to evaluate video stream quality and measure the Quality of Experience. Packet loss affects both the decoder performance and the user's perception of video quality due to several network issues. The main goal of this paper is to estimate the perceived video quality at the receiver's side by passive measurement and also evaluate how errors propagate through temporal prediction. Our proposed method is based on the network level parameters by considering the codec and frame information. Our experiment analysis will finally verify the accuracy and the efficiency of our proposed method. © 2012 IEEE.
Senemar, S.,
Saffari, B.,
Sharifkazemi, M.B.,
Bahari, M.,
Jouyan, N.,
Dehaghani, E.D.,
Yavarian, M. Publication Date: 2013
EXCLI Journal (16112156)12pp. 437-448
Elevated level of plasma homocysteine (Hcy) has been identified as an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease (CAD). Furthermore, numerous studies have documented the influences of a common polymorphism (C677T) of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) on homocysteine levels. However the relationship between this mutation and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has remained as a controversial issue. The present study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between C677T polymorphism of MTHFR gene, plasma total Hcy levels and the number of affected vessels as a criterion for the extent of CAD. MTHFR genotypes and plasma homocysteine (HCY) concentrations were examined in 231 patients and 300 healthy subjects who underwent diagnostic coronary angiography. A multiple linear regression analysis was performed to identify the predictors of Hcy levels whereas logistic regression model was built to determine the association of Hcy quartiles with the risk of CAD adjusted for risk factors. The prevalence of MTHFR genotypes was similar between CAD patients and non-CAD individuals while the geometric mean of Hcy values was significantly higher in patient group (14.13 ± 4.11 μmol/l) than in control group (10.19 ± 3.52 μmol/l) (P < 0.001). Moreover, unlike the MTHFR polymorphism, Hcy concentration increased with increasing number of stenosed vessels and the CAD risk increased about 2 folds in the top two Hcy quartiles (≥ 17.03 and 13.20-17.02 μmol/l) compared with the lowest quartile (≤ 9.92 μmol/l) after controlling for conventional risk factors (P<0.001 for both). Our data suggest that hyperhomocysteinaemia (HHcy) is significantly associated to CAD risk increase as well as to the extent of coronary atherosclerosis.
Saffari, B.,
Senemar, S.,
Karimi, M.,
Bahari, M.,
Jouyan, N.,
Yavarian, M. Publication Date: 2013
Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences (18125735)16(16)pp. 788-795
There have been many controversial debates on the role of Hyperhomocysteinaemia (HHcy) as an independent risk factor for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) during recent years. Furthermore, an alanine/valine (Ala/Val) gene polymorphism at 222nd amino acid of 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) has been considered as a factor that could render this enzyme thermolabile and less active which in turn may yield a subsequent increase in plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) levels. To assess whether this polymorphism is associated with increased risk of CAD and plasma levels of tHcy in a population from southern Iran, a total of 457 patients with angiographically documented multi-vessel CAD were compared with a control group comprised of 371 subjects with <30% stenosis in all major vessels. Nevertheless our results failed to admit a significant difference between CAD individuals and control subjects for Ala/Val polymorphism and plasma Hcy concentrations. However, plasma Hcy concentrations were significantly higher in individuals with Val/Val genotype than subjects with Ala/Ala genotype, but it didn't show a significant association with CAD in our population. Moreover, as the multiple linear regression analysis indicated, smoking habit, folate levels and the MTHFR Val/Val genotype were the only major predictors of tHcy concentrations in the current investigation. © 2013 Asian Network for Scientific Information.
Publication Date: 2013
Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Science (22313354)3(3)pp. 112-116
Present investigation was aimed to identify natural products of plant-origin as novel antibiotic resistance reversal agents. Aqueous and methanol extracts of Piper longum (fruits) were tested against multiple drug resistant (MDR) clinical isolates of Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi, Shigella sonnei, as well as reference-plasmid-harboring strains of Escherichia coli (RP4) and Bacillus subtilis (pUB110). The crude methanol extract showed significant antibacterial activity with a minimal inhibitory concentration of 400 μg/mL against Bacillus subtilis (harboring pUB110 plasmid). Methanol extract could reverse the antibiotic resistance in clinical isolates of Shigella sonnei, with a curing efficiency of 42%. In comparison with methanol extract, aqueous extract showed antibiotic resistance reversal efficiency against wider range of clinical isolates. Aqueous extract showed strong antibiotic resistance reversal activities against R-plasmid harboring strains of clinical origin- Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella typhi with curing efficiencies of 64%, 50% and 32% respectively. This antibiotic resistance reversal may be attributed to the elimination of R-plasmids as the multiple antibiotic resistance genes are usually located on R-plasmids. Active biomolecules from P. longum may prove to be a source to develop MDR reversal agents of natural origin to contain the development and spread of plasmid borne multiple antibiotic resistance.
Publication Date: 2013
Iranian Economic Review (10266542)17(1)pp. 69-91
Economic convergence is one of the important topics of new macroeconomics. It refers to tendency of income per capita of countries (regions) to converge to their steady-state value. There are two kinds of convergence: conditional and absolute convergence. This paper examines income convergence between 22 MENA countries during the period of 1970-2003 by using the neoclassical growth model of Barro-Salla-i-Martin for both kinds of convergence. Non-linearity of the underlying relationships, the restrictiveness of assumptions of functional forms and econometric problems in the estimation and application of theoretical models advocate for the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) algorithms. We show that by changing the quantitative tools of analysis and using ANN, the results become more precise. Results show that absolute convergence and conditional convergence are significant but the rate of convergence is low.
Publication Date: 2013
Iranian Economic Review (10266542)17(2)pp. 51-64
Public sector decision-makers are faced with the task of allocating resources among different alternative subject due budgetary constraints. In this paper Official Development Assistance (ODA) data have been considered as foreign aid. ODA is channeled through the public sector of recipient countries and, hence, the ultimate effect of ODA on savings or economic growth depends on how governments respond to it. This paper tries to explore the impact of official development assistance on public sector behavior in selected developing countries and contribute to the fiscal response literature on two main grounds. First, it specifies a fiscal response model. Second, using panel data model for a sample of 25 aid recipient countries in Asia and Latin America over the period 1991-2010. Empirical results indicate that official development assistance has a positive and significant effect on government investment expenditure, but it has not significantly impact on government current expenditures. Results also show that ODA crowds out both government revenue and public borrowing. © 2013, University of Teheran. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2013
Iranian Economic Review (10266542)17(1)pp. 135-155
Poverty is arguably the most pressing economic problem of the time of global financial crisis that crisis have adverse impact on it through a variety of channels and typically lead to slowdowns in economic activity and, consequently, rise in formal unemployment and/or falls in real wages. On the other hand, it is generally argued in the literature that economic collaboration in the forms of financial and trade integrations is likely to enhance growth potentials and development of an economy and leads to poverty reduction. In this regard, the questions this paper addresses are how the life of poor people in the Islamic nations affected by financial crises, additionally, whether the implementation of economic collaboration strategies controls for the effects of crisis on poverty. In this paper, we specify a dynamic panel regression model of poverty using data of the selected Islamic countries over the period 1995-2008, in order to explore the effect of the recent global financial crises on poverty in such countries. This allows us to verify whether economic collaboration implementation would adjust such effect. Our findings showed that crisis will worsen the condition of living and will cause increasing poverty more that before crisis. However, the results imply a weak role of economic cooperation in the group of Islamic countries for controlling the effects of crisis on poverty and income distribution. The implication is that an economic integrating block implementation is not effective in reducing poverty in the Islamic countries and these countries should strengthen their economic cooperation in different areas and act according to principles of economic cooperation.
Publication Date: 2013
2025 29th International Computer Conference, Computer Society of Iran, CSICC 2025
Financial and electronic debts are one of the important issues in Iran's financial scope that are considered by economists due to their role in creating financial instabilities. Therefore, a model was represented in this survey to evaluate and rank financial and electronic debts in Iran including foreign debts, governmental debts, non-governmental debts and banking debts during the period 1999-2012 using analytic hierarchy process (ARP). To this end, four indexes of volume of debt, ability to repay, willingness to repay and return rate of debts were identified and paired comparison of debts was conducted given to the research literature in this scope and interview with experts. Then total weight of each index was calculated, score of each index was exploited and finally ranking of all kinds of financial and electronic debts was determined by sum of the score of indexes. Expert Choice 11 software was used to calculate the weights. © 2013 IEEE.
Rezvan, M.T.,
Hamadani, A.Z.,
Saffari, B.,
Shalbafzadeh, A. Publication Date: 2014
Decision Science Letters (19295804)3(3)pp. 285-294
Case-based reasoning (CBR) is the process of solving new cases by retrieving the most relevant ones from an existing knowledge-base. Since, irrelevant or redundant features not only remarkably increase memory requirements but also the time complexity of the case retrieval, reducing the number of dimensions is an issue worth considering. This paper uses rough set theory (RST) in order to reduce the number of dimensions in a CBR classifier with the aim of increasing accuracy and efficiency. CBR exploits a distance based co-occurrence of categorical data to measure similarity of cases. This distance is based on the proportional distribution of different categorical values of features. The weight used for a feature is the average of co-occurrence values of the features. The combination of RST and CBR has been applied to real categorical datasets of Wisconsin Breast Cancer, Lymphography, and Primary cancer. The 5-fold cross validation method is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. The results show that this combined approach lowers computational costs and improves performance metrics including accuracy and interpretability compared to other approaches developed in the literature. © 2014 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2014
Journal of Environmental Studies (23456922)40(1)pp. 247-254
Introduction: Air pollution is one of the critical challenges in metropolitans around the world. According to World Health Organization (WHO), three millions people die from air pollution annually. In some studies mortality costs by air pollution was estimated. Social cost of air pollution was estimated 28990 billions Rials in Tehran city. The mortality cost by air pollution was estimated about 4.31% of GDP in Singapore. Air pollution was increased the mortality rate by 868 in Manchester city annually in 1992-98, where the social cost was estimated about £572 million. Recently air pollution has become a serious crisis in Isfahan city in Iran In this study the mortality cost by air pollution as a social cost was estimated in this metropolitan in 2010-2011. Also mortality rate and long run effect of air pollution were estimated. Material and methods: Air pollution has short run and long run effect on the mortality. Air pollution accelerate patient' death and also can shorten life expectancy of other citizens. In most empirical studies only short run effect was investigated using dose response function. In this study, an ARMAX model was used to decompose short run and long run effect of air pollution on the mortality: (1+θ1L+θ2L 2)(log(MORT) - SMOOTH90 [log (MORT =α + (β, +β2L+β3L2)AQI + (β 4+β5L+β6L2)TEMP +(1+γ1L +γ2L2)e (1) Where, MORT is daily mortality rate, AQI is air quality index, TEMP is the average of daily temperature and e is an error term. Also seasonality effect of the mortality variable was smoothed with locally weighted least squares smoothing approach with a bandwidth of 90 days. Long run effect of AQI on the mortality rate was calculated as: LRE=(β1+β2+β3)/ (1+θ1+θ2) (2) Also, Long run elasticity of the mortality to air pollution was calculated as: LREL= [(β1+β2+β3)/1+θ 1 + θ2]AQI (3) Where, AQI is the average of daily air quality index in 2010-211. To estimate the social costs of air pollution for t=0, at first relative risk ratio was calculated: RRR = Exp((β 1) × AQI) (4) Total mortality was then divided by RRR. Difference of this figure with the total mortality yield the mortality in t=0 due to air pollution. For t= 1, the RRR was calculated as: RRR = Exp ((β2-β1×θ1) × AQI) (5) By multiplying mortality in t=0.1 by blood money gives the approximate social cost of air pollution. Results and discussion: Data on the daily mortality rate, daily mean temperature, and Air Quality Index (AQI) was taken from Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan Metrological Organization and Isfahan Environmental Protection, respectively in 2010-2011. The data are described in Table 1. (Table Presented) For mortality variable the Phillips - Perron tests are able to reject the null hypothesis of unit root. The Phillips - Perron tests statistics was - 781.75 for the log(MORT) variable with a five percent critical value of-29.5. The econometric results are reported in Table 2. This model includes one lagged value of AQI and a twice lagged value of temperature. Air pollution had significant effect in the mortality rate (Table 3). (Table Presented) The social cost of air pollution: To estimate the annual social costs of air pollution, relative risk ratio (RRR) was calculated as Equ. 4 for t=0: RRR=Exp (0.00059*95.13)=1.09146 The total mortality (12015) was divided to this figure yield 11008 implying 1007 more deaths. Next to calculate the RRR for t=l, the lag coefficient was calculated: -0.00035+ (0.00059*0.67898)= 0.00005 The relative risk ratio was calculated: Exp(0.00005*13.95)= 1.0047 Dividing the total mortality (12015) by this figure yields 11958 impling 17 more deaths. Therefore, air pollution has caused 1024 deaths in 2010-11 (annually 512). Multiplying by blood money, the annual mortality cost was estimated 345 billion Rials. Conclusions: Air pollution has increased significantly in Isfahan city in recent years. In this study the short-run and log-run impacts of air pollution on the mortality rate was estimated in Isfahan city. For this purpose an ARMAX model was used to approximate the entire distributed lag impacts of changes in the level of air pollution on the mortality rate. Results showed that, annually, air pollution has increased the mortality rate about 8.5%. Accounting for this phenomenon the social cost has 346 billions for the residents of Isfahan. Also a 1% increase in air pollution increase 0.123% daily the mortality rate.
Publication Date: 2014
Journal of Economic Studies (01443585)41(4)pp. 601-614
Purpose – In this paper the authors address the questions whether global financial crises cause oil shocks worldwide, then whether such shocks affect trade flows of both oil importing and oil exporting countries of East-West Asia. The purpose of this paper is thus to explore such effects by specifying basically a dynamic export model using data of the Asian economies countries over the period 1980-2008. Design/methodology/approach – An ARDL specification is applied to show the dynamic effects of main determinants, including financial crisis and the world oil price, on the export flows of each country in the sample. The data for financial crisis have been compiled by Hatzius et al. (2010). Findings – The results, as a whole, imply that both financial crisis and oil price have a cross-effects on Asian trade flows in the short run, while this effects could not occur in the long run. Originality/value – The goal is to estimate an econometric model of exports to examine how recent crises affect export flows in the selected Asian countries. Different from previous studies in the literature, this paper first explores the interaction between financial crisis and oil shocks and second uses an extended and dynamic export model, based on ARDL approach. The core of the study relies on the question whether a cross-relationship between oil price and financial crisis affects the export flows of the Asian countries: China, Japan, Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Turkey which are both oil importing and exporting. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Publication Date: 2014
ACS Chemical Neuroscience (19487193)(1)pp. 51-55
Introduction: Coronary Artery disease (CAD) is influenced by genetic factors, environment and culture behavior. The aim of the present study was to evaluate some non-modifiable risk factors of coronary heart disease such as sex, age, family history and consanguineous marriage.
Methods: This is a case-control study. The study population consisted of 200 fifteen or more years old. Data were collected on 200 patients with positive angiography and 200 control subjects with negative angiography. Positive angiography was defined as coronary diameter cut greater than 50%. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS 11.5. In this study, data were collected through a checklist. Logistic regression and stratification were used to determine the impact of age, gender, family history, and consanguinity on the risk of stenosis.
Results: The percentage of men in patients and controls were 89% and 29%, respectively. As to gender, a significant association was found between patients and controls of CAD (CI 95%, 4.014-10.052, OR 6.352). Gender was determined as a risk factor for CAD. Family history of myocardial infarction did not show a significant effect on the artery stenosis. As to consanguinity of the parents, there was no significant association between patients and controls of CAD (P> 0.05).
Conclusion: These researches show that ageing increases the risk of coronary heart stenosis; also, females are more than men protected against this disease. The impact of family history of myocardial infarction and consanguineous marriage were not associated with of CAD.
Publication Date: 2014
Iranian Economic Review (10266542)18(1)pp. 81-101
The economic convergence concept arises from the Solow-Swan growth model. Accordingly, two hypotheses are considered: absolute and conditional convergence. The first implies the convergence of economies towards a steady-state. The second hypothesis is based on the convergence of each economy toward its own steady-state. Indeed, it refers to different structures of economies. In experimental studies, for testing the conditional hypothesis, different determinants are entered in the growth model to capture the differences in structures. However, one coefficient is estimated for β-convergence and one convergence speed is obtained. This paper examines the convergence hypotheses for Asian countries over the period of 1999-2009 using the geographically weighted regression (GWR) approach. GWR provides useful means for dealing with spatial variation in convergence speed. In this way, convergence coefficients can be computed for considered countries. The results show that, speed of convergence varies over different countries. Also, the spatial variation of steady- state incomes is significant. © 2014, University of Teheran. All rights reserved.
One of the most important new developments in the banking industry is the creation of electronic money. Obviously, the use of electronic money in the banking industry of in each country is evaluated as useful when investments made by banks in this field increase profitability. In this regard, the aim of this study is to investigate the impact of the development of electronic money on the profitability of DBS1 banks of Singapore in which the total return on equity is defined as the dependent variable, smart card index as electronic money variable, and market concentration index as the size of the bank, and the number of ATM machines. Estimating the model is done using annual data period between 2000 to 2011 and based on panel data econometric model. The main findings of this study suggest that the development of electronic money has had positive impact on the profitability of surveyed banks. © 2014 IEEE.
Publication Date: 2015
2025 29th International Computer Conference, Computer Society of Iran, CSICC 2025
The present study tends to analyze the impact of the development of stock market, as an index for electronic business, on the investment in Iran over the period 1981-2012. In this regard, the stock index variable to GDP has been used as an e-business index ARDL methods used to determine the presence or absence of short-Term and long-Term relationship of each independent variable on the dependent variable; to process data, Eviews 7 software is applied. The main findings of this study indicate that the stock index, as an index of e-business, has a significant positive effect on investment. In other words, the stock composes a portion of the wealth of people in the society and its increase coincides with rising incomes and, thus, it raises investment. © 2015 IEEE.
Jouyan, N.,
Saffari, B.,
Davoudi-dehaghani, E.,
Saliani, N.,
Senemar, S.,
Bahari, M.,
Jouyan, N.,
Ostovan, M.A. Publication Date: 2015
Tehran University Medical Journal (16831764)72(12)pp. 838-846
Background: Polymorphisms of the upstream transcription factor 1 (USF1) have been associated with familial combined hyperlipidemia (FCHL), type 2 diabetes and coronary heart diseases (CHD). In the current investigation, the association of USF1s2 variant of human USF1 gene with premature coronary artery disease (PCAD) was evaluated in a population from southern Iran. USF1s2 has the best potential as a functional variant.in the USF1 gene. Methods: In a case-control study USF1s2 variant of human USF1 gene was determined by polymerase chain reaction- restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) technique using BsiHKA I restriction enzyme for 186 women under 55 years of age and 135 men less than 50 years of age who underwent diagnostic coronary angiography in Saadi, Nemazee and Kowsar Hospitals of Shiraz, between July 2009 and March 2012. Data on the history of familial myocardial infarction or other heart diseases, hypertension, and smoking habit were collected by a simple questionnaire. Blood sugar level and serum lipid profile of all participants were also obtained by measuring the levels of fasting blood sugar (FBS), total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL). Results: Frequencies of the major (G) and minor (A) alleles of usf1s2 gene variant were 0.74 and 0.26 in the whole population, respectively. Meanwhile, the prevalence of the minor allele was significantly higher in PCAD patients compared with control subjects. This difference remained significant even after adjustment for confounding parameters. Indeed, subjects with mutant homozygous genotype (AA) were about 5 times more likely to suffer from early-onset CAD than those with wild-type homozygous genotype (GG). Moreover, the baseline characteristics of the control subjects and patients were statistically similar for almost all parameters except for the number of male individuals; there was no significant difference among various genotypes in the patient group for any of these investigated variables. Conclusion: It appears that the usf1s2 variant in upstream transcription factor 1 gene is an independent predictor of premature coronary artery disease in our population and applies its effects without affecting blood sugar and lipid levels. © 2015, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2015
Applied Econometrics and International Development (15784487)15(1)pp. 143-160
This case study estimated an electricity demand function for industrial sector of Iran by applying the structural time series technique to quarterly data for 2000q1-2011q4. In addition to identifying the size and significance of the price and output elasticities, this technique also uncovers UEDT. It is found that the estimated long-run and short-run industrial output elasticities are respectively, 0.85 and 0.36 and the estimated long-run and short-run industrial energy price elasticities are -0.47 and -0.27, respectively. The results suggest that the nature of the trend is not linear and deterministic but stochastic in form. The UEDT for the electricity usage of the industrial sector shows an upward slope.
Publication Date: 2015
Iranian Economic Review (10266542)19(2)pp. 211-231
For several decades, the selection of a proper tax base has been among the most serious concerns for the economic policy makers. The computable general equilibrium models analysis provides a comprehensive framework for the investigation of the effects of the adopted policies on the economy of a country. In the present study, using a static computable general equilibrium, the effects of tax reform in Iran have been taken into account. The results of the static comparative analysis show that a reduction in the capital income tax and the wage tax leads to the enhancement of the economic growth and welfare of Iranian households. Besides, the policy of decreasing the consumption tax results in a decrease in the economic growth of the country. Simulation results of the comparative static analysis show that the wage tax has the greatest effect on the economy of the country. The second greatest effects are associated with the capital income tax and the consumption income tax, respectively. © 2015, University of Teheran. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2016
Iranian Economic Review (10266542)20(4)pp. 581-598
While economic deterrence models are fully based on maximizing economic utility; social psychology models explain human behavior by examining the underlying attitudes, norms and beliefs. Tax morale is defined as the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes. However, determinants of tax morale need to be investigated for a more comprehensive understanding of tax morale. In this paper we analyze the most important determinants of tax morale in Iran using data from World Values Surveys (WVS). Determinants of tax morale are categorized into four main groups: social capital, conditional cooperation, demographic factors and economic situation of the respondents. Estimating ordered probit model, we find that conditional cooperation and economic situation have the most important effects on tax morality. However, some of the social capital variables like importance of politics and religion and demographic factors like gender and marital status don’t have significant effect on tax morale in Iran. © 2016, University of Teheran. All right reserved.
This chapter explores options for environmental policy instruments to tackle trade-related environmental challenges and evaluate options for developing and emerging economies to choose from. International trade and investment are the channels through which environmental policies transmit from one country or region to another. The sustainability challenges may originate in various manners, namely concentration of environmentally damaging industries, overexploitation of natural resources, and emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and so on. The Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis (EKCH), the growing income level of a country can significantly influence its environmental sustainability. The Pollution Haven Hypothesis (PHH) deals with environmental degradation scenario originating from foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows towards the pollution-intensive sectors/regions. The Factor Endowment Hypothesis (FEH) argues that a country will specialize in the most abundantly available resource and accordingly lead to sustainability challenges. Border trade adjustments (BTA) are instruments to provide a level playing field to domestic producers where environmental standards are stringent. © 2016 Debashis Chakraborty and Jaydeep Mukherjee.
