THE EFFECT OF INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: STUDY ON AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION EXPERTS IN KURDISTAN PROVINCE

This study aimed at exploring the effect of intellectual capital (IC) on knowledge management (KM) among Agriculture Organization experts of Kurdistan Province. Statistical population of this study consisted of all Agriculture organization experts in the Kurdistan province of Iran (N=326). Using Cochran’s sampling formula, 63 farmers were selected as a sample. Respondents were selected by using Stratified random sampling method. For increasing reliability of the findings, 125 questionnaires distributed among experts, ultimately 101 questionnaires completed and analyzed in SPSS software. The instrument of the study was a questionnaire which its validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was established by calculating Chronbach’s Alpha Coefficient (α>0.7). Data analysis was performed by SPSSwin18 software. The Results of this study showed that level of IC and KN was moderate among Agriculture organization expert. Moreover, Results of correlation analysis showed that there is a significant positive relationship between indicators of the IC (human, structural and relational) and KM. Finally, the results of stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that the indicators of IC (human, structural and relational), they can to explain 4.6% of the variance in the dependent variable

Evaluating the Productivity Using Malmquist Index Based on Double Frontiers Data

AbstractThe cement industry, as a basic industry, has an essential function in the development of a country's infrastructure. This industry in Iran, however, despite numerous advantages such as high-quality mines and the use of energy at an affordable price, faces many challenges. Problems such as misuse of the production capacity in the industry threaten productivity, making it an urgent need to conduct research into this area. Generally speaking, the Malmquist productivity index can help to compare a variety of companies in the industry and to formulate a benchmark to help companies progress in this area. This research used the Malmquist index based on double frontiers data in order to provide in-depth information about the productivity of 20 companies in the Iranian cement industry. Results showed that a concomitant consideration of double frontiers, or in other words a consideration of both optimistic and pessimistic views, yielded more accurate data than those of the traditional Malmquist index, which took into account only optimistic views in calculations

Effects of low-dose contraceptive pills on the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases among 15-35-year-old women: A retrospective cohort

Background: Cardiovascular diseases could be preventable; as a result, understanding the risk factors was regarded as the major priority for healthcare providers. Objective: The main objective of this research was to achieve a deeper insight into the effect of long-term use of low-dose oral contraceptive pills (OCP) on the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases. Materials and Methods: This research was a retrospective cohort conducted (historical and prospectively) conducted on 100 women with normal menstrual cycles aged 15 to 35 yr, who were referred to the healthcare centers in Yazd, Iran. The participants were categorized into two groups: The OCP group was consuming the pills for 3, 4-23, and 24-36 months, and the non-OCP group. Participants were followed up for a minimum of 3 months and a maximum of six months. Results: The highest level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), homocysteine, cholesterol, triglyceride levels, and systolic blood pressure was observed in the OCP group in the duration of 24 to 36 months. The Tukey’s test demonstrated that there were comprehensible differences in the LDL (p = 0.01), cholesterol (p = 0.01), triglyceride (p < 0.001), and homocysteine levels (p < 0.001), also systolic blood pressure (p = 0.04). Conclusion: It was realized that the long-term consumption of low-dose OCP can augment the incidence of some risk factors (systolic blood pressure, homocysteine levels, cholesterol, LDL-c, and triglyceride) and lead to developing cardiovascular diseases amongst the healthy women. Key words: Birth control pills, Homocysteine, Nitric oxide, Dyslipidemias, Coronary artery diseases

A Selective Fluorescent Optode for Lead(II) Based on the Dansylamidopropyl Pendant Arm Derivative of 1,4-dioxa-7,13-dithia-10-azacyclopentadecane ([15]aneNS2O2)

In this study, a novel highly sensitive and selective fluorescent optode membrane aimed at the determination of Pb(II) ion is proposed by incorporating N-(3-(1,4-dioxa-7,13-dithia-10-azacyclopentadecan-10-yl)propyl)-5-(dimethylamino)naphthalene-1-sulfonamide (L) as fluoroionophore in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) containing 2-nitrophenyl octylether (NPOE) as a plasticizer. In addition to high stability and reproducibility, the proposed optosensor showed a unique selectivity toward Pb(II) ion, with a wide linear range of molar concentrations (1.0 × 10−9–1.0 × 10−3 M) and a low detection limit of 7.5 × 10−10 M in solution at pH 5.0. The formation constants of the Pb(II) complexes with the fluoroionophore were evaluated by fitting the fluorescence data with a nonlinear least-squares curve-fitting program, and further information about the structures of the complexes were evaluated based on hybrid-DFT calculations. The optosensor exhibited a fast response time of less than three min, being easily regenerated by exposure to a solution of dithiothreitol. The sensor was applied to the determination of Pb(II) in real samples (canned tuna fish), and it provided satisfactory results comparable to those obtained via atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS)

Reinforcing Data Integrity in Renewable Hybrid AC-DC Microgrids from Social-Economic Perspectives

The microgrid (MG) is a complicated cyber-physical system that operates based on interactions between physical processes and computational components, which make it vulnerable to varied cyber-attacks. In this paper, the impact of data integrity attack (DIA) has been considered, as one of the most dangerous cyber threats to MGs, on the steady-state operation of hybrid MGs (HMGs). Additionally, a novel method based on sequential hypothesis testing (SHT) approach, is proposed to detect DIA on the renewable energy sources’ metering infrastructure and improve the data security within the HMGs. The proposed method generates a binary sample, which is used to compute a test statistic that is further used against two thresholds to decide among three alternatives. The performance of the suggested method is examined using an IEEE standard test system. The results illustrated the acceptable performance of the proposed methodology in detection of DIAs. Also, to evaluate the effect of DIA on the operation of the HMGs, DIAs with different severities are launched on the measured power generation of renewable energy resources (RESs) like wind turbine (WT). The results of this part showed that a successful DIA on renewable units can severely affect the operation of electric grids and cause serious damages.© 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s), published by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3512891. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Scientometrics and Analysis of the Research Trends in the Fourth Industrial Revolution Field and Quality 0.4

Purpose: This research aims to investigate the changes that have taken place in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, particularly in the field of quality 4.0, at a global level and within organizations. The researchers seek to explore the impact of intelligent technologies on society and products, as well as how advanced and developing countries have moved towards digitalization. Various specific topics related to Industry 4.0 and Quality 4.0 have received special attention in this study. Additionally, the research aims to examine the collaboration between countries in different areas and how researchers and industry professionals in developed countries have utilized intelligent technologies to enhance their capabilities.Method: Scientometrics and data analysis methods were employed in this research to achieve the research objectives and answer the research questions. Data, including articles, books, dissertations, conference papers, and more, were extracted from the Web of Science database, specifically focusing on the years 2012 to 2020, in the fields of industry 4.0, intelligent technologies, quality 4.0, and related concepts. A total of 4,926 studies were included. The Space software was used for data analysis, where nodes represent author names, journals, countries, keywords, etc., and the links indicate citations or correlations between nodes. The desired outputs were presented in the form of figures and tables.Findings: Although countries like Germany and the United States were among the first to pursue digitalization and the use of intelligent technologies in their production systems and all sectors of their countries, many developing countries, such as India, have increasingly embraced these technologies. It is expected that these countries will achieve significant technological advancements in the near future. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that researchers have focused more on the use of intelligent technologies to reduce environmental pollution by minimizing the use of natural resources. This demonstrates the global attention given to environmental issues. The findings also indicate a trend towards intelligent production and the necessity of automated quality control using robots. Such advancements should be widely implemented within organizations, leading to smart quality or quality 4.0.Conclusion: Based on the results of this research, it is evident that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought significant changes to technologies in general, transforming production and service processes through technologies such as cyber-physical systems, 3D printing, blockchain, and big data. In recent years, many organizations in both developing and developed countries have sought to implement quality 4.0 concepts in various areas such as leadership, culture, and strategy development, utilizing intelligent technologies for smart quality control within their organizations. Therefore, future research in the fields of industry 4.0 and quality 4.0 may consider topics such as digital leadership, digital culture, digital organizational structure, and more

An International collaborative pathologic study of surgical lung biopsies from mustard gas-exposed patients

SummaryBackgroundRecent studies have shown strong evidence that bronchiolitis obliterans is the major long-term sequelae of exposure to sulfur mustard (SM). This study is the first to examine the histopathologic spectrum of changes in a large number of surgical lung biopsies from patients exposed to SM.MethodFifteen patients with chronic respiratory disease from mustard gas exposure were divided into severe (6 cases) and mild exposure (9 cases). All had surgical (open or thoracoscopic) lung biopsy, pulmonary function tests (PFTs) and chest high-resolution computed tomography scan (HRCT).ResultThe mean age of the cases was 43.8±9.6 (range 33–65). All patients had dyspnea and cough as the two main complaints. Only one patient was a smoker. Thirteen patients had normal PFTs, while one had obstruction and one had mild restriction. Six (66.6%) patients in the mild exposure and 3 (50%) in the severe exposure group showed evidence of more than 25% air trapping on chest HRCT. Among the mild group, 3 had features of constrictive bronchiolitis and another had features suggestive of this (bronchiolectasis and mucus stasis). The next most common finding was a mild-to-moderate chronic cellular bronchiolitis (3 patients). Two among the 6 in the severe group showed constrictive bronchiolitis and one showed features suggestive of constrictive bronchiolitis.ConclusionWe conclude that about half of patients had diagnostic constrictive bronchiolitis, or bronchiolectasis and mucus stasis consistent with more proximal luminal compromise. The fact that there were no differences between the low- and high-dose groups suggests that effects of SM are not solely dependent on the severity of exposure. The results also indicate that the diagnosis of chronic lung disease due to SM may be difficult. Surgical lung biopsy may be helpful in difficult cases, as constrictive (obliterative) bronchiolitis can be present in symptomatic patients with normal PFTs and chest HRCT

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 comparative risk assessment (CRA) is a comprehensive approach to risk factor quantification that offers a useful tool for synthesising evidence on risks and risk outcome associations. With each annual GBD study, we update the GBD CRA to incorporate improved methods, new risks and risk outcome pairs, and new data on risk exposure levels and risk outcome associations. Methods: We used the CRA framework developed for previous iterations of GBD to estimate levels and trends in exposure, attributable deaths, and attributable disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), by age group, sex, year, and location for 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or groups of risks from 1990 to 2017. This study included 476 risk outcome pairs that met the GBD study criteria for convincing or probable evidence of causation. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from 46 749 randomised controlled trials, cohort studies, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk exposure level (TMREL), we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We explored the relationship between development and risk exposure by modelling the relationship between the Socio-demographic Index (SDI) and risk-weighted exposure prevalence and estimated expected levels of exposure and risk-attributable burden by SDI. Finally, we explored temporal changes in risk-attributable DALYs by decomposing those changes into six main component drivers of change as follows: (1) population growth; (2) changes in population age structures; (3) changes in exposure to environmental and occupational risks; (4) changes in exposure to behavioural risks; (5) changes in exposure to metabolic risks; and (6) changes due to all other factors, approximated as the risk-deleted death and DALY rates, where the risk-deleted rate is the rate that would be observed had we reduced the exposure levels to the TMREL for all risk factors included in GBD 2017. Findings: In 2017,34.1 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 33.3-35.0) deaths and 121 billion (144-1.28) DALYs were attributable to GBD risk factors. Globally, 61.0% (59.6-62.4) of deaths and 48.3% (46.3-50.2) of DALYs were attributed to the GBD 2017 risk factors. When ranked by risk-attributable DALYs, high systolic blood pressure (SBP) was the leading risk factor, accounting for 10.4 million (9.39-11.5) deaths and 218 million (198-237) DALYs, followed by smoking (7.10 million [6.83-7.37] deaths and 182 million [173-193] DALYs), high fasting plasma glucose (6.53 million [5.23-8.23] deaths and 171 million [144-201] DALYs), high body-mass index (BMI; 4.72 million [2.99-6.70] deaths and 148 million [98.6-202] DALYs), and short gestation for birthweight (1.43 million [1.36-1.51] deaths and 139 million [131-147] DALYs). In total, risk-attributable DALYs declined by 4.9% (3.3-6.5) between 2007 and 2017. In the absence of demographic changes (ie, population growth and ageing), changes in risk exposure and risk-deleted DALYs would have led to a 23.5% decline in DALYs during that period. Conversely, in the absence of changes in risk exposure and risk-deleted DALYs, demographic changes would have led to an 18.6% increase in DALYs during that period. The ratios of observed risk exposure levels to exposure levels expected based on SDI (O/E ratios) increased globally for unsafe drinking water and household air pollution between 1990 and 2017. This result suggests that development is occurring more rapidly than are changes in the underlying risk structure in a population. Conversely, nearly universal declines in O/E ratios for smoking and alcohol use indicate that, for a given SDI, exposure to these risks is declining. In 2017, the leading Level 4 risk factor for age-standardised DALY rates was high SBP in four super-regions: central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia; north Africa and Middle East; south Asia; and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania. The leading risk factor in the high-income super-region was smoking, in Latin America and Caribbean was high BMI, and in sub-Saharan Africa was unsafe sex. O/E ratios for unsafe sex in sub-Saharan Africa were notably high, and those for alcohol use in north Africa and the Middle East were notably low. Interpretation: By quantifying levels and trends in exposures to risk factors and the resulting disease burden, this assessment offers insight into where past policy and programme efforts might have been successful and highlights current priorities for public health action. Decreases in behavioural, environmental, and occupational risks have largely offset the effects of population growth and ageing, in relation to trends in absolute burden. Conversely, the combination of increasing metabolic risks and population ageing will probably continue to drive the increasing trends in non-communicable diseases at the global level, which presents both a public health challenge and opportunity. We see considerable spatiotemporal heterogeneity in levels of risk exposure and risk-attributable burden. Although levels of development underlie some of this heterogeneity, O/E ratios show risks for which countries are overperforming or underperforming relative to their level of development. As such, these ratios provide a benchmarking tool to help to focus local decision making. Our findings reinforce the importance of both risk exposure monitoring and epidemiological research to assess causal connections between risks and health outcomes, and they highlight the usefulness of the GBD study in synthesising data to draw comprehensive and robust conclusions that help to inform good policy and strategic health planning