Sharif Digital Repository

Rapid growth in energy consumption and environmental concerns over conventional power generation technologies has increased the need for alternative energy sources. Kinetic hydropower has been available for decades, however, despite its minimal environmental impact, commercialization has been limited. The main purpose of the first part of this thesis is investigation of flow properties near the convergent-divergent nozzles with various geometries. Two parameters that studied include variation of drag force on body and mean velocity of water flow in middle cross section. In the second part, we studied a horizontal marine current turbine (which its geometry is taken from a NREL wind... 

Regarding the increasing application of fast boats in the world, studying the motions and dynamic performances of these boats is consequently effective and vital.Vast activities take place in all over the world yearly. General performances hull tests occur in marine laboratories such as Wave maker and carriage. Model hull test is one of effective branches of the naval architecture engineering. This method is also based on dimensional analysis. In this thesis,after understanding the waves and the methodology, a computer program was developed to predict motions of a high speed craft in regular and irregular waves (Heave and Pitch). Slamming is one of the most important parameters on a high... 

The removal of ethylene glycol, one of the most widely used antifreez, with moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) was studied. Beside of ethylene glycol, the synthetic wastewater contained molasses and other salts as nutrient source. The packings were composed of polyethylene and shaped like small cylinders with a surface area of 500 m2 per m3 bulk volume of carriers(KMT). The COD of the feed was adjusted by varying the ratio of ethylene glycol to molasses. The total COD was 1252.5, 1345 and 1500 mg/L. The resulted showed that when the biofilm grows on the packings and its thickness is good enough, the removal efficiency increased. The increase was attributed to higher concentration of biomass... 

In recent decades, bio-inspired design has become a common approach among engineers. Research and study of biological systems show that these systems are very efficient and consume the least amount of energy in a definite process. Specifically, marine mammals and fishes are great sources of inspiration. As an example, recently vertical axis wind turbine farms have been designed and constructed inspired by schools of fish, to produce more electricity. Boxfishes (Teleostei: Ostraciidae) are known for their hydrodynamic stability and relatively low drag coefficient. Highly maneuverable underwater robots have been designed according to morphology of boxfishes. Furthermore, Mercedes-Benz has... 

Based on symbolic theories BRANDS have personalities and according to this, brands like human beings have personality and stable behaviors in a period of time. Customers can imagine brands like a live creature according to different causes such as marketing communications, social responsibility of brand, CEO behaviors, clients, customers, etc. “BRAND PERSONALITY” is an interesting concept in world of marketing and it is one of the most important part of the brand identity. Brand personality makes people think at “brands” as friends. We consider “personality” as a perception of knowing, feelings and motivations that make people reactions toward their environment. Consuming is a way of... 

Customer needs of Iran Print Industry have permanently been a secret for all producers, print centers and even many of the customers themselves. This research tries to find the relationship gaps between Iran Print Industry and its Individual /Industrial Customers, by identifying their needs. This will give recommendations on how manufacturers can increase their customers' satisfaction by providing them with what they need. Also it helps find the customers` satisfaction coefficient of the needs, which is a good guide for Customer Relationship Management in this industry.Therefore, manufacturers can spot these results by providing appropriate machines which can achieve these goals and offer... 

One of the subjects that have been title for many research proposals in recent years is application of Nano Zero Valent Iron (NZVI) particles in contaminant removal from groundwater sources. Despite many studies being done, field application of this particles in a practical scale is not widespread yet which is due to many challenges like rapid settlement of particles or their unclear behavior through field application. The main purpose of this thesis in the first place is to find a practical and productive method for stabilization of particles and enhancement of their transport properties. To reach this goal, application of a natural polymer like starch has been studied as a solution. To... 

Marketing nowadays is an extremely dynamic field in which brand plays a critical role. Although comparing to developed countries, marketing is not a very old science area in Iran, but in the past decade brand concept has become more and more important among marketing managers of domestic industries. Nevertheless, there is no scientific approach to manage this critical concept, i.e. brand among local companies.Since managing any concept requires measuring it, there have been many global research conducted in the past 4 decades in order to construct a measurement framework to evaluate brand equity. But in Iran however, there is a big gap in this area and brands are evaluated by marketing... 

This study analyzes determinants of customers’ switching intentions. The context of this study is service area and we have studied customers’ behavior of internet service providers. In this research we focus both on transactional and relational variables. We have tried to clarify the role of consumers’ commitment on their intentions to switch. Drawing from literature and based on previous service switching research we have developed a switching model. This includes two component of customer commitment and the antecedents of commitment. We have developed our hypothesis according to this model and the literature review. The survey was administered to ADSL internet home users. A sample of 130... 

Nowadays, different technologies help businesses in their various processes, especially marketing, so that their activities can be carried out in a better way.One of the emerging technologies that has come to the attention of retailers in recent years is augmented reality. With the help of this technology and only with a smartphone, a product can be viewed virtually and three-dimensionally in real space. There have been several studies on the effect of augmented reality technology on marketing processes and customers' shopping experience. Most of these studies have focused on the online shopping experience. This study examines how augmented reality technology, allows buyers to have more... 

One way for businesses to grow and compete, in any age (especially the digital age), is to create a Brand Relevance through creating or finding, and then owning new categories or subcategories. In this way, instead of beating competitors; they become irrelevant by enticing customers to buy a new category or subcategory for which other alternative brands are not considered relevant. Firms traditionally rely on interviews and focus groups to identify these subcategories and customer needs. Nowadays, with the growth of social media, user-generated content (UGC) is also a good alternative source. However, Due to the large size of UGC and the non-informative or repetitive data it contains,... 

This thesis seeks to answer the following research questions: 1-How customers’ engagement with social media activation campaigns is conceptualized and operationalized? 2- What are the main antecedents of customers’ engagement with such campaigns? 3-How customers’ engagement with these campaigns affects brand image? The first research question is addressed in the first section of this research and includes five phases. Using the conceptualization of engagement in psychology, marketing, information systems, and some other fields, Phase 1 conceptualizes customers’ engagement with social media activation campaigns. This phase offers a comprehensive definition of this construct and discuss the... 

Brand perceptual map is a practical tool for visualizing the position of a brand and its competitors in the mind of customers. In traditional ways of building a brand perceptual map, the researcher identifies important aspects of the product and designs a questionnaire to measure the scores of different brands to gather the required information from users. With the increasing development of online shopping, users have been voluntarily registering their reviews in online shops, in a free and unstructured manner, and have created valuable data sources in these online stores. Due to the large size of registered reviews, processing them requires the use of automated methods in computers. In... 

In the past two decades, there have been significant advancements in responsible management education at the international level. These developments have led to new discourses and pathways in the field of management education and research. Responsible Management Education (RME) involves considering perspectives related to the responsibilities of enterprises, the social impacts of private sector activities on society, attention to the environment and sustainable development, and business ethics in the curriculum of business schools. Business schools worldwide have initiated numerous programs, studies, initiatives, lessons, and events to address social issues, responsible management, and... 

In this research the tendency of the Iranian companies in using marketing metrics will be examined. Business orientation and size of the firms have been considered as factors to be effective on diversified taste of companies in using financial, non-financial or a combination of both measures in evaluating marketing performance. An export-oriented sector of our country such as companies affiliated in IDRO must be able to measure the marketing performance as a prerequisite to be able to enter a global competition. In this research it has been attempted to determine the metrics favored by Iranian firms. It has been also concluded that the size of the companies has a direct relation with the... 

Among businesses operating under the sharing economy model, ride-sharing platforms or Internet taxis have attracted a lot of attention and have been able to encourage millions of people to use them in a few years. Meanwhile, what has been the subject of numerous researches in recent years is the motivation of people to use this type of business. Understanding what motivates users to use these businesses is important to them because it helps them allocate their resources optimally by focusing on the benefits, shortcomings, and potential disadvantages of their product, And then by improving the provided service, have more advantages and attractiveness in the eyes of customers. Accordingly, in... 

Customer relationship management is a comprehensive strategy for managing the relationships with customers. Customer relationship management involves technology for automation, organizing, and adaptation of business processes, including sales activities, marketing and customer service. Main purpose of CRM is finding and attracting new customers, maintaining current customers, attracting the organization's former customers, reducing marketing costs and customer service. Most studies in this area are related to B-C organizations and few studies are related to B-B and especially project based organizations. This study aimed to identify the factors affecting the implementation of customer... 

This thesis presents the results of the performance of a novel technology called submerged membrane electro-bioreactor (SMEBR). The SMEBR treats wastewater by combining membrane filtration, electrokinetic phenomena, and biological processes in one reactor, and improves treatment performance while helping to control membrane fouling. The newly designed SMEBR system was based on applying an intermittent direct current (DC) field between immersed perforated electrodes around a membrane filtration module. The SMEBR system significantly reduced the fouling rate when iron worked as electrodes and an intermittent DC with an operational different mode was applied.
In Phase 1 of this project,... 

Launching new food product is more difficult than the marketing of an existing product. Usually companies focus on their ability, and process (product orientation) in New Product Development but many scholar researches say that market orientation is a highly critical factor for new product success. Some literatures have been studied, and many success factors found out but some of them that were related to beverages were chosen. It is concluded by analysis of survey that Functionality, Being Healthy, Manufacture, Packaging, Availability, Repeat use, Trial cost, Feedback, Endorsement, Distribution Channel, Branding, and Awareness are important success factors in NPD in beverage marketing...