Transformational Leadership and Employees’ Creativity: A Multi-Mediation Model

This research aims to examine the relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ creativity through mediating role of trust and job autonomy. The study employed cross sectional survey method for the collection of data from 187 employees working in construction and banking sectors of Pakistan. The findings reveal that transformational leadership fosters employees’ creativity through trust and job autonomy. Both trust and job autonomy have statistically significant mediating effect. However, trust being the mediator, plays a more significant role in boosting up the transformational leadership and employees’ creativity relationship as compared to job autonomy. This research helps to know how transformational leadership enhances employees’ creativity by enlightening the mediating role of trust and job autonomy. Further, the findings of this research also help the managers to understand and create such environment which enhances employees’ creativity by focusing on the factors identified in this study. This research contributes to advance the literature on the mediating role of trust and job autonomy in describing the relationship of transformational leader and employee’s creativity and highlighting that trust plays a more important role to enhance creativity in contrast to job autonomy. Further, this is the first attempt to enhance the employee creativity through transformational leadership style and the mediating role of both trust and job autonomy in Pakistan

Factor XIII deficiency in children--clinical presentation and outcome

OBJECTIVE: To determine the demographic features and clinical outcome of children with Factor XIII deficiency. STUDY DESIGN: Observational case series. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from January 1996 to December 2006. METHODOLOGY: Records of all hospitalized pediatric patients with discharge diagnosis of FXIII D, on the basis of factor XIII assay 5 mol/L urea test were retrospectively reviewed and abstracted on a pre-specified proforma. Demographic features, coagulation profile, family history and outcomes were noted. RESULTS: A total of 10 charts were reviewed. There were 5 boys and 5 girls. Almost all the children (9/10) were less than 5 years of age, out of whom 5 (50%) were infants, and 3 were neonates. Bruises and prolonged bleeding after trauma was the major presenting complaints in 80%, followed by prolonged bleeding from the umbilical stump in 2 patients. Nine patients had past history of prolonged umbilical bleeding. Two patients had history of FXIII D in siblings, while 2 had history of prolonged bleeding in other family members (cause unknown). Consanguinity was present in 80% of the families. Initial coagulation screen were normal in all patients. Two patients had intracranial hemorrhage, proved on neuro-imaging, were managed with plasma infusions and required craniotomy. The rest were managed conservatively with plasma transfusions. All were discharged alive in good clinical condition. Almost all were followed regularly in clinic with monthly cryoprecipitate transfusions. CONCLUSION: Although factor XIII deficiency is a rare genetic disorder in children with history of bruising, prolonged umbilical bleeding, family history of bleeding and consanguinity with normal initial coagulation screen (PT, APTT and platelets), FXIII D should be ruled out

Human Capital Development Typology: A Case Study of the Saudi Arabia

Saudi government is struggling to build knowledge based society to encounter social and economic challenges for the year 2030, when oil supply will be just sufficient to meet local Saudi demands. This study embarks upon the importance of the mixed-economy for sustainable growth in the 21st century. This study investigates three objectives. Firstly, it highlights Saudi socio-economic challenges. Secondly, it identifies alternative ways to realize the vision of mixed economic model for oil driven economy. Thirdly, it identifies the relationship between human capital and Saudi economic indicators. This research presents a typology based upon econometric models using secondary data, collected from World-Bank, World Health Organization (2013) and Saudi Monitory Agency annual statistical data-streams. It is recommended that the Saudi youth can play a vital role in economic growth subject to change in their mindset to overcome artificial joblessness among the Saudis

Complex Fractional-Order LQIR for Inverted-Pendulum-Type Robotic Mechanisms: Design and Experimental Validation

This article presents a systematic approach to formulate and experimentally validate a novel Complex Fractional Order (CFO) Linear Quadratic Integral Regulator (LQIR) design to enhance the robustness of inverted-pendulum-type robotic mechanisms against bounded exogenous disturbances. The CFO controllers, an enhanced variant of the conventional fractional-order controllers, are realised by assigning pre-calibrated complex numbers to the order of the integral and differential operators in the control law. This arrangement significantly improves the structural flexibility of the control law, and hence, subsequently strengthens its robustness against the parametric uncertainties and nonlinear disturbances encountered by the aforementioned under-actuated system. The proposed control procedure uses the ubiquitous LQIR as the baseline controller that is augmented with CFO differential and integral operators. The fractional complex orders in LQIR are calibrated offline by minimising an objective function that aims at attenuating the position-regulation error while economising the control activity. The effectiveness of the CFO-LQIR is benchmarked against its integer and fractional-order counterparts. The ability of each controller to mitigate the disturbances in inverted-pendulum-type robotic systems is rigorously tested by conducting real-time experiments on Quanser single-link rotary pendulum system. The experimental outcomes validate the superior disturbance rejection capability of the CFO-LQIR by yielding rapid transits and strong damping against disturbances while preserving the control input economy and closed-loop stability of the system

Transformational Leadership and Pro-Environmental Behavior of Employees: Mediating Role of Intrinsic Motivation

Current research study attempts to investigate the impact of transformational leadership on pro-environmental behaviors along with the mediation of intrinsic motivation. This model is tested on 150 professionals that include lecturers from four different universities of Pakistan. We find that transformational leader enhances the intrinsic motivation, which consecutively related to pro-environmental behaviors positively. Further, there is also a direct positive relationship of transformational leadership with pro-environmental behaviors. Precisely, our findings advocate that transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation is important in prompting pro-environmental behaviors of employees

Treatment of biomass gasification tars with non-thermal plasmas

PhD ThesisIn this project, a non-thermal plasma dielectric barrier discharge (“DBD”) reactor was used to reduce the concentration of tar in the product gas, and its performance was evaluated at different reaction conditions. Toluene and benzene were used as tar model compounds. The effects of reaction parameters such as the residence time, concentration, wall temperature and plasma power on tar removal were studied in a tubular dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma reactor at ambient pressure. The percentage removal of tar increased with increasing plasma power and residence time to as high as 99% in various carrier gases (CO2, H2, and N2) and gas mixtures. However, the decomposition of tar analogue compounds decreased with increasing concentration. It was found that most of the toluene converted into solid residue due to the polymerization of hydrocarbon radicals produced in the plasma system at ambient temperature in all carrier gases (CO2, H2, N2, and mixtures). The other products were lower hydrocarbons, CO, and H2, depending upon the type of carrier gas. The synergetic effect of power and temperature was investigated to decrease the unwanted solid deposition. It was observed that selectivity to lower hydrocarbons increased to 99% at 400 oC and 40 W, with the non-thermal plasma. In these conditions solid formation was completely prevented. The maximum selectivities to methane were 60 % and 81% for toluene and benzene, respectively. However, in other carrier gases (N2 and CO2), the selectivity did not increase beyond 15 %, even with increasing temperature, and solid formation was observed even at elevated temperatures. However, in the gas mixtures, solid formation was significantly reduced when increasing the temperature due to presence of H2. Therefore, the plasma power and surrounding temperatures can be used to control the product distribution in the presence of H2 carrier gas

Control of Aflatoxin Production Using Herbal Plant Extract

The aflatoxins are a group of chemically similar poisonous, carcinogenic fungal secondary metabolites produced by Aspergillus flavus, A. parasiticus, and A. nomius, which are abundant in warm and humid regions of the world. They are probably the most intensively researched toxins in the world due to their carcinogenic and mutagenic effects. Aflatoxins have also been identified as a potential biological weapon for food and water contamination. The four major aflatoxins commonly isolated from different foods and feed stuffs are AFB1, AF B2, AFG1, and AFG2. Aflatoxin contamination of food and feed has gained global significance as a result of its deleterious effects on human as well as livestock health including gastrointestinal dysfunction, reduced feed utilization, anemia, jaundice, liver damage and immunity suppression. The profitability and marketing of various agricultural products are adversely affected by either contamination of aflatoxins or aflatoxin‐producing fungi. The foods at highest risk of aflatoxin contamination are maize, chilies, peanuts, and cotton seeds. There are various physical, chemical, and natural methods investigated to prevent aflatoxin production and the growth of aflatoxin‐producing fungus in various agricultural products. Here, we describe various natural plant extracts that would be potential source of controlling aflatoxin production in agricultural products