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.
Esterification considers the most important reaction in biodiesel production. In this study, oleic acid was used as a suggested feedstock in order to study and simulate production of biodiesel. The batch esterification reaction of oleic acid was carried out at various operating conditions; temperature from 40 to 70 °C, ethanol to oleic acid molar ratio from 3/1 and 6/1 and a reaction time up to 180 min.
The catalyst used was prepared NaY zeolite, which is added to the reaction mixture as 2, 5 and 10 wt.% of oleic acid.
The results show that the optimum conditions, gives 0.81 conversion of oleic acid, were 6/1 molar ratio of ethanol/oleic acid, 5 wt.% NaY relative to initial oleic acid, 70°C and 60 minutes. The activation energy o
Friction stir spot welding (FSSW) is a relatively new welding process that may have significant advantages compared to the fusion processes as follows joining of conventionally non-fusion weldable alloys, reduced distortion and improved mechanical properties of weldable alloys joints due to the pure solidstate joining of metals. In this paper, a three-dimensional model based on finite element analysis is used to study the thermal history in the spot-welding of aluminum alloy 2024. The model take place the thermomechanical property on the process of the welded metals. The thermal history and the evolution results with numerical model at the measured point in the friction stirred spot weld have a good matching, then the prediction of the t
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A Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of mobile nodes, that forms on the fly a temporary wireless multi-hop network in a self-organizing way, without relying on any established infrastructure. In MANET, a pair of nodes exchange messages either over a direct wireless link, or over a sequence of wireless links including one or more intermediate nodes. For this purpose, an efficient routing protocol is required. This paper introduced performance study of three of MANET protocols (AODV, GRP and OSPFv3). This study was one of the newer studies because wireless communication played an important role in today’s application and the field of mobile ad hoc network becomes very popular for the researchers in the last years. This study w
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New isatinic hydrazone Schiff-base ligands, namely furan-2-carboxylic acid (2-oxo-1,2-dihydro-indol- 3-ylidene)-hydrazide (L1), thiophene-2-carboxylic acid (2- oxo-1,2-dihydro-indol-3-ylidene)-hydrazide (L2) and 2-(pyridine-2-yl-hydrazono)-1,2-dihydro-indol-3-one) (L3) are reported. The ligands were prepared by the condensation of furan-2-carboxylic acid hydrazide (L1), thiophene- 2-carboxylic acid hydrazide (L2), and 2-hydrazino pyridine (L3) with isatine. Monomeric complexes were prepared from the reaction of the corresponding metal chloride with the ligands. The ligands and their nine new complexes of the general formulae [M(Ln)2]Cl2 [where M = Co(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II); n = L1, L2 and L3] were characterised by spectroscopic methods (FTI
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Four mixed ligand complexes were prepared from 1,10-phenanthroline (Phen), 5-chlorosalicylic acid (CSA), and anthranilic acid (Anthra) dissolved in aqueous ethanol at a ratio of (1:1:1:1) M: Phen:CSA: Anthra, M(II)= Cu, Zn, Cd, and Hg. The prepared compounds were analyzed by flame atomic absorption, FT-IR, UV-Vis, and spectroscopic methods, as well as conductivity measurements and magnetic properties. After analyzing the prepared compounds using the acquired data, the complexes formed by mixing ligands were concluded to adopt an octahedral geometry. That study has been conducted to test the inhibitory effectiveness of the complexes (1,10-Phenanthroline (Phen), 5-Chlorosalicylic acid (CSA), Na[Cu(Phen)(CSA)(Anthra), Na[Zn(Phen)(CSA
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Sewer system plays an essential task in urban cities by protecting public health and the environment. The operation, maintenance, and rehabilitation of this network have to be sustainable and scientifically. For this purpose, it is crucial to support operators, decision makers and municipalities with performance evaluation procedure that is based on operational factors. In this paper, serviceability and performance indicator (PI) principles are employed to propose methodology comprising two enhanced PI curves that can be used to evaluate the individual sewers depending on operational factors such as flowing velocity and wastewater level in the sewers. To test this methodology; a case study of al-Rusafa in Baghdad city is
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The azo dye brilliant reactive red K-2BP (λmax = 534 nm) is widely used for coloring textiles because of its low-cost and tolerance fastness properties. Wastewaters treatment that contains the dye by conventional ways is usually inadequate due to its resistance to biological and chemical degradation. During this study, the continuous reactor of an advanced oxidation method supported the use of H2O2/sunlight, H2O2/UV, H2O2/TiO2/sunlight, and H2O2/TiO2/UV for decolorization of brilliant reactive red dye from the effluent. The existence of an optimum pH, H2O2 concentration, TiO2 concentration, and d
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