How to Apply Service Operations Management Principles to Improve Student Engagement and Satisfaction

Students complain that technical courses like operations management are boring, dry or unenthralling. If we characterize classroom learning between a student and an instructor as a knowledge-intensive service encounter, then students are a kind of “customer” who must interact with the classroom system and play a key role in their own learning. Without engagement and a modicum of satisfaction, student learning plummets. But where to start and how? How might we apply our non-classroom subject matter expertise to the classroom? To overcome students’ negative opinions of the learning process in an operations management course, we applied tried and true principles from service operations management (SOM) to design a better service experience that is more engaging and interesting (without capitulating to the customer being right). Our study involves three phases across two different modalities. We identified and tested key components from SOM that might impact student learning (e.g., customer contact theory, the gap model of service quality, and the psychology of waiting) and linked these components to important suggestions for increasing engagement in the classroom. We then tested how applying the SOM framework improved student satisfaction as measured by assessment of learning and student evaluations. We discovered that applying service design principles to the learning process provides a systematic way to improve student engagement and satisfaction without sacrificing rigor

The Correlation of Serum Chloride Level and Hospital Mortality in Multiple Trauma Patients

Introduction: Electrolyte disorder is a prevalent complication in multiple trauma patients; nevertheless, the role of chloride has been rarely addressed in literature when evaluating serum electrolytes. Objective: The present study was conducted to determine the correlation between serum chloride changes and hospital mortality in multiple trauma patients. Method: The present cross-sectional study measured serum chloride levels in 100 multiple trauma patients upon their admission to the emergency department and 24 hours later. All these patients were followed up in terms of hospital mortality using their medical records. Exact logistic regression was used to measure the effects of independent variables on hospital mortality in the patients. Results: Hospital mortality was found to be 15 (15%), and the mean serum chloride level to be 106.37±4.53 mmol/l upon admission and 112.18±6.16 mmol/l 24 hours later. Although the univariate analysis suggested that serum chloride levels were independently associated with mortality 24 hours after admission (P=0.005), this correlation was insignificant in the multivariate analysis. Conclusion: The present study rejected the hypothesis suggesting the potential role of serum chloride levels in predicting hospital mortality in multiple trauma patients

Financial Stability and Economic Performance in OPEC Countries: An Approach to Co-integration Methods

Providing stable conditions in various sectors of economy is one of the most important factors that is required for moving toward sustainable growth and holistic development in a country. One of the major prerequisites of economic stability and exiting the economic crises is financial stability. In economic literature, it is always emphasized on establishment of stability and sustainable growth via financial development. However, financial development requires financial tools such as an efficient banking system whose efficiency is possible through competitiveness and financial liberalization. The present study explores financial stability and economic performance in OPEC countries during the time period 2000-2013.  It is applicable from objective aspect and descriptive-analytical from methodological aspect. It explores the relationship between financial sector and economic performance using the generalized method of moments (GMM) following Creel et al. (2014).  The results disclosed that the effect of independent variable of financial stability on the dependent variable of economic performance (economic growth) in OPEC countries is positive and significant. This showed that increasing of financial stability and departing from financial crises decreases the investment risk and it is increased when transaction costs, production, and economic growth are increased in these countries. Likewise, the results demonstrated that the effect of the independent variable of financial liberalization on the dependent variable of economic performance (economic growth) in OPEC countries is positive and significant. This indicated that increasing of financial liberalization and improvement of financial transactions among countries will decrease the investment risk and it is increased when transaction costs, production, and economic growth are increased

Cataract Surgical Coverage in Kurdistan, Iran

This is a Letter to the Editor and does not have an abstract. Please download the PDF or view the article HTML

Protective Effect of Diospyros kaki

Ischemic cerebrovascular disease is one of the most common causes of death in the world. Recent interests have been focused on natural antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents as potentially useful neuroprotective agents. Diospyros kaki (persimmon) has been shown to exert anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antineoplastic effects. However, its effects on ischemic damage have not been evaluated. Here, we used an in vitro model of cerebral ischemia and studied the effects of hydroalcoholic extract of peel (PeHE) and fruit pulp (PuHE) of persimmon on cell viability and markers of oxidative damage mainly intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) induced by glucose-oxygen-serum deprivation (GOSD) in PC12 cells. GOSD for 6 h produced significant cell death which was accompanied by increased levels of ROS. Pretreatment with different concentrations of PeHE and PuHE (0–500 μg/mL) for 2 and 24 h markedly restored these changes only at high concentrations. However, no significant differences were seen in the protection against ischemic insult between different extracts and the time of exposure. The experimental results suggest that persimmon protects the PC12 cells from GOSD-induced injury via antioxidant mechanisms. Our findings might raise the possibility of potential therapeutic application of persimmon for managing cerebral ischemic and other neurodegenerative disorders

Pre-equalization for pre-Rake MISO DS-UWB systems

In recent years, ultra-wideband (UWB) communications has gained tremendous popularity in both research community and industry. The large bandwidth of UWB systems raises new wireless channel effects and consequently unique advantages as well as challenges to be dealt with, compared to conventional wireless systems. One of these advantages is the ability to resolve dense multipath components and use Rake combining at the receiver in order to significantly reduce the negative effects of fading. However, implementing a Rake receiver with a sufficiently large number of fingers to make use of this advantage is an evident challenge for most UWB devices with limited signal processing capabilities. A possible approach to overcome this problem is to move computational complexity from the receiver to the more powerful transmitter, which is the main focus of the present work. In this thesis, we propose two novel pre-equalization schemes for multiple- input single-output (MISO) direct-sequence ultra-wideband (DS-UWB) systems with pre-Rake combining and symbol-by-symbol detection. The first pre-equalization filter (PEF) scheme employs one PEF per transmit antenna, whereas in the second, simplified PEF (S-PEF) scheme all transmit antennas share the same PEF. For both schemes the optimum finite impulse response (FIR) and infinite impulse response (IIR) PEFs are calculated based on the minimum mean squared error (MMSE) criterion. We show that in contrast to previously proposed schemes for DS-UWB, both our proposed PEF schemes efficiently exploit the channel shortening properties of the pre-Rake filter. In particular, our proposed PEF schemes operate at the symbol level. We also show that under certain conditions the S-PEF scheme achieves the same performance as the more complex PEF scheme. Finally, we demonstrate that a single-input multiple-output (SIMO) DS-UWB system with post-Rake combining and MMSE post-equalization is the dual system to the considered MISO DS–UWB system with pre-Rake combining and MMSE pre-equalization. This uplink-downlink duality can be exploited for efficient calculation of the PEFs and for complexity reduction. Our simulation results show that the proposed PEF schemes achieve significant performance gains over pre-Rake combining without equalization even if only short PEFs are employed, and this is the case even for long UWB channel impulse responses.Applied Science, Faculty ofElectrical and Computer Engineering, Department ofGraduat

The Effect of Teaching Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies on Reading Comprehension Ability

The demands of the changing world impose on learners the need to become autonomous readers. This places a responsibility on the shoulders of the teachers to develop an approach to teaching reading which will help readers become independent strategic ones. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of teaching reading strategies on the development of reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. An experimental design was adopted to accomplish this investigation. To do so, two intact classes of 35 students were selected. Then to find out the homogeneity of the participants, Oxford Placement Test was administrated to both classes’ among whom 60 students who scored above 47 were selected as homogeneous and were assigned to two experimental and control groups. The students in the experimental group participated in 10 sessions and were taught two strategies of reading comprehension: activating background knowledge and contextual strategies. At the same time, the materials in the control group were taught through conventional methods of reading and translating the texts into Persian. In the 10th session, the post-test was administrated to both groups. The results of the t-test confirmed the positive effect of reading strategies instruction on the development of reading comprehension ability. These findings may furnish language teachers with the empirical evidence that capitalizing on the students' awareness of the strategies and helping them to use these strategies will significantly develop their reading abilities

Accuracy of different impression materials in parallel and nonparallel implants

Background: A precise impression is mandatory to obtain passive fit in implant-supported prostheses. The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of three impression materials in both parallel and nonparallel implant positions. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, two partial dentate maxillary acrylic models with four implant analogues in canines and lateral incisors areas were used. One model was simulating the parallel condition and the other nonparallel one, in which implants were tilted 30° bucally and 20° in either mesial or distal directions. Thirty stone casts were made from each model using polyether (Impregum), additional silicone (Monopren) and vinyl siloxanether (Identium), with open tray technique. The distortion values in three-dimensions (X, Y and Z-axis) were measured by coordinate measuring machine. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), one-way ANOVA and Tukey tests were used for data analysis (α = 0.05). Results: Under parallel condition, all the materials showed comparable, accurate casts (P = 0.74). In the presence of angulated implants, while Monopren showed more accurate results compared to Impregum (P = 0.01), Identium yielded almost similar results to those produced by Impregum (P = 0.27) and Monopren (P = 0.26). Conclusion: Within the limitations of this study, in parallel conditions, the type of impression material cannot affect the accuracy of the implant impressions; however, in nonparallel conditions, polyvinyl siloxane is shown to be a better choice, followed by vinyl siloxanether and polyether respectively