Shirzad-Aski H.,
Yazdi, M.,
Mohebbi A.,
Rafiee M.,
Soleimani-delfan, A.,
Tabarraei A.,
Ghaemi, E.A.,
Asadi, P.,
Abbasi jondani, J.,
Rahrovi dastjerdi, A.,
Taymouri, S.,
Yazdkhasti, F.,
Saadatseresht, M.,
Foroghi, D.,
Khodarahmi, G.,
Abedi, A.,
Varshosaz m., M.,
Kiani, G.H.,
Jalali, H.,
Zaker, H.,
Sadeghi-aliabadi, H.,
Dinari, M. Publication Date: 2025
Virology Journal (1743422X)(1)pp. 1358-1366
Background: Staphylococcus saprophyticus (S. saprophyticus) is the second most prevalent etiological agent of urinary tract infections (UTIs) in young women. However, there is a paucity of data regarding its bacteriophage (phage). Therefore, this study was conducted to isolate and identify new lytic phages from municipal wastewater with the objective of increasing knowledge about phages and their genomes. Methods: A total of 11 clinical isolates of S. saprophyticus and 30 wastewater samples were used to isolate three lytic phages (vB_SsapH-Golestan-100, vB_SsapH-Golestan101-M, and vB_SsapH-Golestan-105-M). The morphology, behavioral characteristics, and complete DNA genomes of these phages were analyzed. Results: The microscopic images of the phages revealed that the sizes of their heads and tail lengths fell within the ranges of 90–111 nm and 234–266 nm, respectively. All phages exhibited high adsorption rates (99.5% in 15 min) and burst sizes (150–210 PFU per infected cell), with a potential for a narrow host range. Genomic analysis of Staphylococcus phages indicated a size of 136,433 base pairs (bp) with a guanine-cytosine (GC) content of 33.7% and 192 open reading frames (ORFs) for vB_SsapH-Golestan-100, 144,081 bp with a GC content of 29.6% and 205 ORFs for vB_SsapH-Golestan101-M, and 142,199 bp with a GC content of 30.6% and 203 ORFs for vB_SsapH-Golestan-105-M. A bioinformatics analysis indicated that all three phages belong to the Twortvirinae subfamily of Herelleviridae. Among the three phages, vB_SsapH-Golestan-100 exhibited the least similarity to previously known phages, with less than 21% similarity with its closest counterparts in genomic databases. Conclusions: This study identified new phages that have the ability to destroy a broad range of S. saprophyticus isolates and may potentially be classified as a new genus and species within the Herelleviridae family in future studies. © The Author(s) 2025.
Publication Date: 2025
International Journal of Economics and Finance Studies (13098055)17(3)pp. 53-68
The current study aims to examine financial leverage and the role of audit quality in accrual-based earnings management in emerging firms. The case study involved firms that are traded on stock exchanges in Iraq and Oman. The systematic sampling technique involved a total of 31 samples from Iraq and 26 samples from Oman between the years 2009 and 2022. In evaluating this study’s hypotheses regarding its variables, a multivariate regression analysis technique that is based on a total sample for all collected variables is used. The empirical findings of this study indicate that financial leverage has a total non-significant impact on earnings management in emerging firms. Furthermore, this study has a total significant and negative impact on earnings management. The findings indicate that financial leverage has a total non-significant impact on earnings management. In relation to this finding, financial leverage is not directly related to earnings management in emerging firms. The finding has a total significant and negative impact on earnings management. In this context, financial leverage has a significant impact in restricting opportunities for financial misrepresentation in emerging firms. The study therefore makes a key addition to this topic in identifying some key factors. The study makes a key point that financial leverage is not directly related to earnings management in emerging firms. The finding has a total significant and negative impact on earnings management. The finding makes a key point that financial leverage has a significant impact in restricting opportunities for financial misrepresentation. The finding has a total total impact in improving financial transparency and reliability in emerging firms in Iraq and Oman. The finding has a total impact in offering key suggestions and guidance to auditors in restricting opportunities for financial misrepresentation in emerging firms. © 2025, Social Sciences Research Society. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2024
Montenegrin Journal of Economics (18006698)20(1)pp. 161-169
The accumulation of cash by corporations creates an agency conflict between management and shareholders, which benefits management at the expense of shareholders. A company's ability to generate profits depends on several factors, but lack of cash on hand is one of the most critical, increasing the risk of insolvency for that business. In the context of modern corporations, where there is separation between agent (management) and principals (owners), it is argued that the agent does not always act and perform its duties in the best interests of owners. Due to the asymmetric information between agent and principals, tax avoidance activities, in this case, can be used as a tool to facilitate the opportunistic behaviour of managers which at the end increasing costs borne by the owners (Dhaliwal et al. 2011). With this in mind, the study's overarching goal is to learn how much a different firm size makes in the correlation between tax evasion and cash on hand among Muscat Stock Exchange-traded corporations from 2011 to 2020. This study adopted the companies listed on the Muscat Stock Exchange as its statistical population; 20 companies were chosen using the process of systematic elimination. Hypotheses were examined using a multivariate regression technique and aggregated data. Moreover, the research found that the firm's size negatively modifies the correlation between tax avoidance and cash on hand. This study provides an insight that agency theory in the context of tax avoidance and corporate cash holdings in developing countries such as Oman needs to be explored further as the agency conflict in Indonesia as a developing country is more principal-principal conflicts. © 2024, Economic Laboratory for Transition Research. All rights reserved.
Publication Date: 2024
Heritage and Sustainable Development (27120554)6(2)pp. 501-514
Research hypotheses that focus on financial leverage, earnings management, and sustainability factors which include growth potential will be highlighted in this study. Data collection includes all establishments that are trading on the Iraq Stock Exchange which is the sample population. Data comprised 31 issuers; selection was done systematically by eliminating companies from fiscal years 2009 through the year 2021. Estimation of the multivariate regression model used panel data actually to test hypotheses of this study. In relation to hypotheses, findings show that real EMS is not affected by financial leverage while accrual EMS is negatively affected. Furthermore, the research finds that a pertinent issue in this regard is the fact that the negative influence of monetary leverage on accrual-based earnings administration increases when growth opportunities are present. In another case, the relationship between monetary leverage and real earnings management does not depend on growth opportunity. Hence, this study shows the need to factor in sustainability elements like readiness for growth when examining the relation between financial leverage, earning management, and company performance. © The Author 2024. Published by ARDA.
Publication Date: 2023
Risks (22279091)11(2)
Budgeting is allocating limited resources to unlimited needs and aims to maximise the use of resources that are usually scarce. In the face of these scarce resources, continuous attention to planning, allocating resources, and budgeting is an undeniable necessity. The importance of the budget in universities that receive their credits from the government is much greater because of their significant role in society’s scientific and cultural orientation of the younger generations. It is evident that incorrect budgeting will cause mistakes in allocating resources in this critical field and will cause severe damage to the country at the national level. Hence, reforming the methods of budgeting and distribution of resources in Iraqi public universities is one of the primary necessities. Therefore, the current research has investigated the feasibility of establishing operational budgeting in Iraqi public universities based on the PESTEL model. The study period is 2022, and the research community is Iraqi public universities (35 universities), of which 15 top universities were selected as a statistical sample. The research data were collected using 198 questionnaires completed by financial managers, accounting experts in financial affairs, and experts specializing in budgeting in sample universities. The results of hypothesis testing showed that all aspects of the study, including political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal, affect the establishment of operational budgeting in Iraqi public universities, and all the research hypotheses are confirmed. In other words, it was found that the political, economic, social, technical, environmental, and legal factors identified in the current research are significant for establishing operational budgeting in Iraqi public universities. It is suggested that legislators and budgeting planners prioritise these factors and rely on them in making decisions since experts approved these stimuli in the field of operational budgeting in the strategic environment of universities and according to the current conditions prevailing in Iraq. © 2023 by the authors.
Publication Date: 2023
Periodicals of Engineering and Natural Sciences (23034521)11(5)pp. 15-26
Internal control is a critical strategy employed by organizations to enhance efficiency and operational effectiveness. Accounting information systems (AIS) also serve as valuable tools for acquiring necessary information to evaluate the performance of both managers and employees. This study examines the impact of internal control on employees' performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Iraq, with a particular focus on the moderating role of accounting information systems (AIS). Questionnaires were distributed among SMEs in Iraq, and data from 198 responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings indicate that internal control has a positive and significant influence on employees' performance in Iraqi SMEs. Furthermore, the utilization of information systems contributes to improved employee performance. However, the study did not find evidence of AIS moderating the relationship between internal control and employees' performance. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that in the economic context of Iraq, particularly within SMEs, internal control plays a crucial role in enhancing efficiency and improving employees' performance. Additionally, information systems have the potential to make a substantial impact in this domain. Nevertheless, it is imperative for these systems to be regularly updated and upgraded to effectively influence all departments and components within an organization. This research contributes to the understanding of internal control and information systems in SMEs in Iraq, which can aid similar organizations in developing economies. © The Author 2023. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that allows others to share and adapt the material for any purpose (even commercially), in any medium with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Publication Date: 2019
Journal of Applied Accounting Research (09675426)20(2)pp. 154-171
Purpose: In accounting and finance, researchers have used many ways to detect manager’s fraud risk. Until now, many researchers have used some data mining methods in these two fields to detect this risk. The purpose of this paper is to compare the precision of two data mining methods in detecting such a risk. Design/methodology/approach: For this purpose, this paper analyzed the texts of board’s reports and used two methods including the convex optimization (CVX) method and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression method. In this way, the words of these reports, which have the greatest power in explaining the manager’s high fraud risk index, were identified. Using these words, this paper presented a model that could detect manager’s high fraud risk index in companies. Findings: The results indicated that both methods can detect the manager’s high fraud risk index with a precision between 82.55 and 91.25 percent. The LASSO method was significantly more precise than the CVX method. Research limitations/implications: The lack of access to an official and reliable list of firms suspected to fraud and the lack of access to the Microsoft Word (MS Word) file of board’s reports were two of the most important limitations of this study. Practical implications: Regulatory bodies and independent auditors can consider the proposed methods in this study for assessing the fraud risk for a firm or other legal parties. Originality/value: This paper avoided using merely financial statements data to detect the manager’s fraud risk index and focused on texts of board’s reports for the detection process. The capabilities of data mining and text mining methods for detecting the manager’s fraud risk index using board’s reports were tested in this paper. By comparing CVX and LASSO results, this paper indicated that methods with a binary-dependent variable have more power and are more precise than methods with continuous-dependent variables for detecting fraud. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Publication Date: 2017
International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research (09727302)15(5)pp. 195-205
The present Research Aimed to Evaluate the Effect of Environmental Uncertainty on the Relation between Earning Management and the Information Asymmetry. In this way, a Sample Evaluated Including 106 Listed Companies in Tehran Exchange Stock during 2008-2013. To Test Hypothesis, Multivariate Regression and Panel Data were used. To Measure Information Asymmetry, the Proposed Scope of Bid-Ask Spread Was Used Following Venkatesh and Chiang (1986) Model. To Measure Earning Management, an Alternative Variable Called Discretionary Accruals Were Used and Estimated with Modified Jones (1991) Model. The Coefficient of Sale Variation is Also a Proxy Variable of Environmental Uncertainty of the Firms. Findings indicated that Managers by Earnings Management through Discretionary Accruals Reduced Earnings Volatility to react to the Undesirable Effect of Environmental Uncertainty Which is Effective on the Performance and Profitability of the Firms and they tried to hide it From Investors and Creditors Attention by Earnings Management, Which Lead to Increases the Information Asymmetry. © Serials Publications Pvt. Ltd.
Publication Date: 2015
International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research (09727302)13(2)pp. 955-970
In this study, the impact Profitability was investigated on Stock Returns based on the price, return and differenced model. Profitability was considered as independent variable and firm size and life cycle as control variables. The sample was included 60 members of the Tehran Stock Exchange during the period of 2005 to 2012. Library study was used for collecting information. Quantitative methods were utilized including statistical analysis and multiple regression analysis. Also STATA version 11 and Excel software were used for the analysis of data and results. The results suggest that all models profitability impact on stock returns and profitability factor should be addressed for earning higher returns.
