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.
Project management are still depending on manual exchange of information based on paper documents. Where design drawings drafting by computer-aided design (CAD), but the data needed by project management software can not be extracted directly from CAD, and must be manually entered by the user. The process of calculation and collection of information from drawings and enter in the project management software needs effort and time with the possibility of errors in the transfer and enter of information. This research presents an integrated computer system for building projects where the extraction and import quantities, through the interpretation of AutoCAD drawing with MS Access database of unit costs and productivities for the pricing and
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In this paper, an Integral Backstepping Controller (IBC) is designed and optimized for full control, of rotational and translational dynamics, of an unmanned Quadcopter (QC). Before designing the controller, a mathematical model for the QC is developed in a form appropriate for the IBC design. Due to the underactuated property of the QC, it is possible to control the QC Cartesian positions (X, Y, and Z) and the yaw angle through ordering the desired values for them. As for the pitch and roll angles, they are generated by the position controllers. Backstepping Controller (BC) is a practical nonlinear control scheme based on Lyapunov design approach, which can, therefore, guarantee the convergence of the position tracking
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In folk medicine there are various medicinal amalgamation possessing hepatoprotective activity. This activity is of significance because several toxins cause liver injury. Hence, many pharmaceutical companies are targeting herbal medicines for the treatment of liver abnormalities and towards evolving a safe and effective formulation with desired route of administration. In current review we have focused on the studies showing hepatoprotective effect using marine compounds and plant derived compounds. Liver disorder, a global health problem, usually include acute or chronic hepatitis, heptoses, and cirrhosis. It may be due to toxic chemicals and certain antibiotics. Uncontrolled consumption of alcohol also affects liver in an unhealthy wa
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In this paper, an approximate solution of nonlinear two points boundary variational problem is presented. Boubaker polynomials have been utilized to reduce these problems into quadratic programming problem. The convergence of this polynomial has been verified; also different numerical examples were given to show the applicability and validity of this method.
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The paper generates a geological model of a giant Middle East oil reservoir, the model constructed based on the field data of 161 wells. The main aim of the paper was to recognize the value of the reservoir to investigate the feasibility of working on the reservoir modeling prior to the final decision of the investment for further development of this oilfield. Well log, deviation survey, 2D/3D interpreted seismic structural maps, facies, and core test were utilized to construct the developed geological model based on comprehensive interpretation and correlation processes using the PETREL platform. The geological model mainly aims to estimate stock-tank oil initially in place of the reservoir. In addition, three scenarios were applie
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In this article, the research presents a general overview of deep learning-based AVSS (audio-visual source separation) systems. AVSS has achieved exceptional results in a number of areas, including decreasing noise levels, boosting speech recognition, and improving audio quality. The advantages and disadvantages of each deep learning model are discussed throughout the research as it reviews various current experiments on AVSS. The TCD TIMIT dataset (which contains top-notch audio and video recordings created especially for speech recognition tasks) and the Voxceleb dataset (a sizable collection of brief audio-visual clips with human speech) are just a couple of the useful datasets summarized in the paper that can be used to test A
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There are two main categories of force control schemes: hybrid position-force control and impedance control. However, the former does not take into account the dynamic interaction between the robot’s end effector and the environment. In contrast, impedance control includes regulation and stabilization of robot motion by creating a mathematical relationship between the interaction forces and the reference trajectories. It involves an energetic pair of a flow and an effort, instead of controlling a single position or a force. A mass-spring-damper impedance filter is generally used for safe interaction purposes. Tuning the parameters of the impedance filter is important and, if an unsuitable strategy is used, this can lead to unstabl
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The study investigates the relationship between the volatility of the Iraqi Stock Exchange Index (ISX), and the volatility of global oil prices benchmarks, Brent and West Intermediate Texas (WTI), in additional to the Iraqi Oil, Basra Crude Light (BSL) which represents the most exported Iraqi oil and the major influential factor on the Iraqi governmental revenues. Using monthly data covering the period: 1/2005-12/1205, econometrical and technical tools represented by Co-incretion, Vector Error Correction Model – VECM, Granger Causality, and Bollinger band were employed in order to explore the relationship between the variables.
The econometric analysis revealed the impact of the oil prices volatility on
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Simulation of free convection heat transfer in a square enclosure induced by heated thin plate is represented numerically. All the enclosure walls have constant temperature lower than the plate’s temperature. The flow is assumed to be two-dimensional. The discretized equations were solved stream function, vorticity, and energy equations by finite difference method using explicit technique and Successive Over- Relaxation method. The study was performed for different values of Rayleigh number ranging from 103 to 105 for different angle position of heated thin plate(0°, 45°, 90°). Air was chosen as a working fluid (Pr = 0.71). Aspect ratio of center of plate to the parallel left wall A2
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