Globalisation and rapid environmental change have created many challenges for public and private organisations across Iraq as a developing country, particularly in the higher education sector. This includes, for example, decreases in government funding; increased demand for higher education; a need for economic transformation, and related competitiveness of organizations. Such challenges require exceptional leaders and strategic planning in order to take action to improve. In Iraq, the higher education sector is still one of the main foundations in progressing the knowledge economy. Studies into leadership style, strategic planning processes, and the importance of leadership and organisational culture to an organisation’s success have been used to assist both public and private Iraqi colleges in responding to the challenges they face. Although, some studies have examined the interaction between leadership and strategic planning, and leadership and organisational success, there has been no empirical study that has investigated how these three variables interact together. Thus, this study aimed, firstly, to identify the current leadership styles and strategic planning processes in the colleges and the challenges they faced, and to gain an understanding from the perspective of the senior leaders themselves as to how they might best respond to the current situation. Secondly, based on the participants’ experiences, knowledge and perceptions, the study aimed to identify implications for both practice and policy to help improve the colleges’ outcomes. The study involved a mixed-methods approach and was conducted in two stages. During the first stage, the researcher gathered quantitative data by administering a survey package to 129 leaders (deans, associate deans, and heads of departments) across both public and private colleges in the capital city of Baghdad. During the second stage, the researcher gathered qualitative data to more deeply explore the survey results by conducting individual interviews with a sub-sample of 21 leaders from both college types (ten public and 11 private). In the data analyses stages, both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were applied to compiling tables and charts, and to test hypotheses, by employing the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), Microsoft Excel, and NVivo. The results of study showed that both transformational and transactional leadership styles played a varied and vital role in the colleges’ strategic planning processes, and in turn their success. The fact that private colleges were ‘for profit’ and public colleges were ‘not for profit’, as well as their contrasting funding models, highlighted key differences between the two college types’ leadership and general modus operandi. While it was found that both transformative leadership and transactional leadership styles were necessary to address the challenges colleges faced in the Iraqi educational context, the impetus for change extended far beyond the need for professional development of leaders. The embracing of information communication technologies, and reliable Internet was seen as necessary in all aspects of the colleges’ work and provision for teaching and learning, and students’ success. This applied to both college types along with the need for closer adherence to government regulations and more focused government coordination of colleges’ administrative functions. Furthermore, implications for making successful improvements to practice also identified the need to manage the challenge of sociocultural influences on the appointments and promotions of leaders. It was concluded that a greater emphasis on teamwork and provision of incentives for staff, along with a ‘boost’ to pedagogy and practice, which could be provided through the adoption of information communication technologies and appropriate professional development strategies, would enhance the colleges’ ranks and the status of their qualifications. Also, theoretically, the study offers a value-add to leadership, strategic planning process, and organisational success literature in the form of a conceptual model that links these variables in the context of Iraqi higher education sector.
A silent film from Baghdad about love, war and poetry... _________________________ A new poetry book by the Iraqi poet Abdul Zahra Zaki has been published by Moment Books & Publications in an exclusively Digital Edition, entitled "Silent Film", and which subtitled "Poems of Blood, Bullets and Car Bombs", translated from the Arabic into English by Dr Adhraa A. Naser. This book is not trying to explain war, but simply to present it the way it is; the destruction it causes and the pain it leaves behind. For all who has changed forever because of war this book speaks the words of the killed and the killer. Zaki introduced the book with a line from his masterpiece The Hand Discovers describing the waves of bodies that stormed the country after t
... Show MoreA comprehensive review focuses on 3D network-on-chip (NoC) simulators and plugins while paying attention to the 2D simulators as the baseline is presented. Discussions include the programming languages, installation configuration, platforms and operating systems for the respective simulators. In addition, the simulator’s properties and plugins for design metrics evaluations are addressed. This review is intended for the early career researchers starting in 3D NoC, offering selection guidelines on the right tools for the targeted NoC architecture, design, and requirements.
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Due to their attractive properties, silver nanowires (Ag-NWs) are newly used as nanoelectrodes in continuous wave (CW) THz photomixer. However, since these nanowires have small contact area, the nanowires fill factor in the photomixer active region is low, which leads to reduce the nanowires conductivity. In this work, we proposed to add graphene nanoantenna array as nanoelectrodes to the silver nanowires-based photomixer to improve the conductivity. In addition, the graphene nanoantenna array and the silver nanowires form new hybrid nanoelectrodes for the CW-THz photomixer leading to improve the device conversion efficiency by the plasmonic effect. Two types of graphene nanoantenna array are proposed in two separate photomixer conf
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The aim of the present study is to formulate, evaluate and characterize the nanoemulsion of Domperidone a poorly water-soluble anti-emetic drug.
Domperidone powder is white or almost white powder, photosensitive, practically insoluble in water, slightly soluble in ethanol and in methanol; soluble in dimethylformamide. It is used as an antiemetic for the short-term treatment of nausea and vomiting of various etiologies.
Solubility studies were conducted to select the oil, surfactant and cosurfactant. Phase diagrams were constructed by aqueous phase
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Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic infection that triggers immune cells to produce cytokines and inflammatory mediators that are responsible for abnormal or aborted immune responses. This study highlights the evaluation of the Dectin-1 receptor and cytokine IL-37 in the serum of 80 patients who had miscarried in the first trimester and were infected with toxoplasmosis, as well as 40 pregnant women in the first trimester who had a successful pregnancy (control groups). The serum was first screened for the T. gondii IgM and IgG antibodies by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and then the serum levels of IL-37 and Dectin-1 were determined. The results showed that the serum level of Dectin-1 was significantly increased in anti-
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The present study focused mainly on the analysis of stiffened and unstiffened composite laminated plates subjected to buckling load. Analytical, numerical and experimental analysis for different cases has been considered. The experimental investigation is to manufacture the laminates and to find mechanical properties of glass-polyester such as longitudinal, transverse young modulus, shear modulus. The compressive test was carried to find the critical buckling load of plate. The design parameters of the laminates such as aspect ratio, thickness ratio, boundary conditions and number of stiffeners were investigated using high order shear deformation theory (HOST) and Finite element coded by ANSYS .The main conclusion was the buckling load c
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The goal of this discussion is to study the twigged of pure-small (pr-small) sub- moduleof a module W as recirculation of a small sub-module, and we give some basic idiosyncrasy and instances of this kind of sub-module. Also, we give the acquaint of pure radical of a module W (pr-radical) with peculiarities.
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Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the newest matters in both industry and academia of the communication engineering world. On the other hand, wireless mesh networks, a network topology that has been debate for decades that haven’t been put into use in great scale, can make a transformation when it arises to the network in the IoT world nowadays. A Mesh IoT network is a local network architecture in which linked devices cooperate and route data using a specified protocol. Typically, IoT devices exchange sensor data by connecting to an IoT gateway. However, there are certain limitations if it involves to large number of sensors and the data that should be received is difficult to analyze. The aim of the work here is to implement a self-
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The compound [G1] was prepared from the reaction of thiosemicarbazide with para-hydroxyphenylmethyl ketone in ethanol as a solvent. Then by sequence reactions prepared [G2] and [G3] compounds. The compound [G4] reaction with ethyl acetoacetoneto synthesized compound [G6] and acetyl acetone to synthesized compound [G5]. Reaction the [G3] with two different types of aldehydes in the present of pipredine to form new alkenes compounds [G7]and [G8].The compound [G3] reacted with hydrazine hydrate to formation[G4] with present the hydrazine hydrade 80% in (10) ml of absolute ethanol. Latter the compound [G4]reacted with different aldehydes with present the glacial acetic acid and the solvent was ethanol to formed the Schiff bases compounds[G9] an
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