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.
Chemotherapy is one of the most efficient methods for treating cancer patients. Chemotherapy aims to eliminate cancer cells as thoroughly as possible. Delivering medications to patients’ bodies through various methods, either oral or intravenous is part of the chemotherapy process. Different cell-kill hypotheses take into account the interactions of the expansion of the tumor volume, external drugs, and the rate of their eradication. For the control of drug usage and tumor volume, a model based smooth super-twisting control (MBSSTC) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, three nonlinear cell-kill mathematical models are considered in this work, including the log-kill, Norton-Simon, and hypotheses subject to parametric uncertainties and exo
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Face recognition is required in various applications, and major progress has been witnessed in this area. Many face recognition algorithms have been proposed thus far; however, achieving high recognition accuracy and low execution time remains a challenge. In this work, a new scheme for face recognition is presented using hybrid orthogonal polynomials to extract features. The embedded image kernel technique is used to decrease the complexity of feature extraction, then a support vector machine is adopted to classify these features. Moreover, a fast-overlapping block processing algorithm for feature extraction is used to reduce the computation time. Extensive evaluation of the proposed method was carried out on two different face ima
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The objective of the study was to predict crop coefficient (K) values for cucumber inside the greenhouse during the growing season 2014, using watermarks gypsum blocks and atmometer c apparatus during the growing stages and to compare the predicted values of the crop coefficient with different methods and approaches. The study was conducted in the greenhouses field within Al-Mahawil Township, 70 km south of Baghdad, Iraq. The watermarks soil water sensors and atmometer apparatus were used to measure crop evapotranspiration and reference evapotranspiration on daily basis, respectively. The comparison and the statistical analysis between the calculated K in this study and values obtained from greenhouse gave a good agreement. The root mean
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A descriptive study, which was using an assessment approach, was conducted for the
determination of the impact of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis patient’s functional disability
upon their life style. The study was carried out at the Rheumatology and outpatients clinics of ALKarama
Teaching Hospital, Baghdad Teaching Hospital AL-Kindey Teaching Hospital and Specialized
surgeries Teaching Hospital for the period of October 15th 2003 through May 13th 2004 in Baghdad
City. A purposive (non-probability) sample of (245) arthritis patients which was comprised (111)
rheumatoid arthritis patients and (134) osteoarthritis patients, was selected out of the early stated
settings. The questionnaire was comprised of
Asphaltenes are a solubility class described as a component of crude oil with undesired characteristics. In this study, Sharqy Baghdad heavy oil upgrading was achieved utilizing the solvent deasphalting approach as asphaltenes are insoluble in paraffinic solvents; they may be removed from heavy crude oil by adding N-Hexane as a solvent to create deasphalted oil (DAO)of higher quality. This method is known as Solvent De-asphalting (SDA). Different effects have been assessed for the SDA process, such as solvent to oil ratio (4-16/1 ml/g), the extraction temperature (23 ºC) room temperature and (68 ºC) reflux temperature at (0.5 h mixing time with 400 rpm mixing speed). The best solvent deasphalting results were obtained at room temp
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The deposition process and investigation of the physical properties of tungsten trioxide (WO3) thin films before and after gamma irradiation are presented in this paper. The WO3 thin films were deposited, using the pulse laser deposition technique, on glass substrates at laser energies of 600mJ and 800mJ. After deposition, the samples were gamma irradiated with Co60. The structural and optical properties of polycrystalline WO3 thin films are presented and discussed before and after 5kGy gamma irradiation at the two laser energies. X-ray diffraction spectra revealed that all the films consisted of WO3 crystallized in the triclinic form; the dislocation density and lattice strain increased with the absorbed dosage of gamma
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Thin films of In2O3-CdO at various CdO contents (0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04 and 0.05) were deposited on transparent substrate which is glass using chemical spray pyrolysis deposition method at substrate temperature 150oC. The structural properties was studied to characterize the prepared materials by XRD analysis. Surface morphology has been illustrated using scanning electron microscopy which proved the nanosize of prepared materials. This materials have been used as gas sensor for toxic gas which is hydrogen sulfide H2S. The sensitivity and response speed have been investigated with addition of CdO nanoparticles. © 2021, S.C. Virtual Company of Phisics S.R.L. All rights reserved.
Objective: Breast cancer is regarded as a deadly disease in women causing lots of mortalities. Early diagnosis of breast cancer with appropriate tumor biomarkers may facilitate early treatment of the disease, thus reducing the mortality rate. The purpose of the current study is to improve early diagnosis of breast by proposing a two-stage classification of breast tumor biomarkers fora sample of Iraqi women.
Methods: In this study, a two-stage classification system is proposed and tested with four machine learning classifiers. In the first stage, breast features (demographic, blood and salivary-based attributes) are classified into normal or abnormal cases, while in the second stage the abnormal breast cases are
... Show MoreResearch in the field of English language as a foreign language (EFL) has been consistently highlighted the need for communicative competence skills among students. Accompanied by the validated positive impact of technologies on students’ skills’, this study aims to explore the strategies used by EFL students in enhancing their communicative competence using digital platforms and identify the factors of developing communicative competence using digital platforms (linguistic factors, environmental factors, psychological factors, and university-related factors). The mixed-method research design was utilized to obtain data from Iraqi undergraduate EFL students. The study was conducted in the Iraqi University in Baghdad Iraq. EFL undergradu
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