Investigating the impact of Total Quality Management (TQM) on innovation in iranian oil companies

Today, the concept of innovation has captured the attention of many scholars and scientists of different fields, and has gained a paramount importance in modern ever changing organizations for competing with rival’s organized management and to survive in the cycle of change. The purpose of the present study is to answer the key question of whether total quality management is able to have any impact on the incremental and radical innovation of Iranian oil companies through cultural changes. This study should be considered as an applicable one in terms of its purpose, a descriptive - correlational one in terms of the method it has followed and a field study in terms of its way of data collection. The sample of the study consisted of 30 Iranian oil Companies, all of which we have thoroughly investigated. The results of the study derived from data analysis done by means of equation modeling method verified all the hypotheses of the study except for hypotheses 2 and 6. According to our results it is possible to increase the rate of innovation in companies by increasing the level of total quality management.Keywords: Total Quality Management (TQM), cultural changes, incremental and radical innovation, Iranian oil Companie

FRW Cosmology From Five Dimensional Vacuum Brans-Dicke Theory

We follow approach of induced matter theory for 5D vacuum BD, introduce induced matter and potential in 4D hypersurfaces, and employ generalized FRW type solution. We confine ourselves to scalar field and scale factors be functions of the time. This makes the induced potential, by its definition, vanishes. When the scale factor of fifth dimension and scalar field are not constants, 5D eqs for any geometry admit a power law relation between scalar field and scale factor of fifth dimension. Hence the procedure exhibits that 5D vacuum FRW like eqs are equivalent, in general, to corresponding 4D vacuum ones with the same spatial scale factor but new scalar field and coupling constant. We show that 5D vacuum FRW like eqs or its equivalent 4D vacuum ones admit accelerated solutions. For constant scalar field, eqs reduce to usual FRW eqs with typical radiation dominated universe. For this situation we obtain dynamics of scale factors for any geometry without any priori assumption. For nonconstant scalar fields and spatially flat geometries, solutions are found to be power law and exponential ones. We also employ weak energy condition for induced matter, that allows negative/positive pressures. All types of solutions fulfill WEC in different ranges. The power law solutions with negative/positive pressures admit both decelerating and accelerating ones. Some solutions accept shrinking extra dimension. By considering nonghost scalar fields and recent observational measurements, solutions are more restricted. We illustrate that accelerating power law solutions, which satisfy WEC and have nonghost fields, are compatible with recent observations in ranges -4/3 < \omega </- -1.3151 and 1.5208 </- n < 1.9583 for dependence of fifth dimension scale factor with usual scale factor. These ranges also fulfill condition nonghost fields in the equivalent 4D vacuum BD eqs.Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures, 11 table

Maternal hyperthyroidism is associated with a decreased incidence of cold-induced ascites in broiler chickens

peer reviewedA hypothesis was tested that providing the breeder hens with exogenous thyroxine (T(4)) would help their offspring to better survive the ascites-inducing condition during the growing period. In total, 132 broiler breeder hens were randomly assigned to one of 3 treatments: control (CON), hypothyroid [HYPO; 6-N-propyl-2-thiouracil (PTU)-treated], and hyperthyroid (HYPER; T(4)-treated). The hens were artificially inseminated, and the hatching eggs (n = 1,320) were incubated. No eggs in the HYPO group hatched. The 1-d-old male chicks (n = 288) from other groups were reared for 42 d under standard or low ambient temperature to induce ascites. Blood samples were drawn from the hens, embryos, and broilers for determination of T(4) and triiodothyronine (T(3)). The hematocrit was also determined in broilers. The PTU-treated hens had an increased BW along with lower plasma T(3) and T(4) concentrations. Plasma T(4) was higher in the HYPER hens compared with CON hens, but T(3) concentration was not different between these groups. The fertility rate was not affected by either hypo- or hyperthyroidism. The embryos in the HYPO group had lower plasma T(3) and T(4) concentrations at d 18 of embryonic development and internal pipping. Higher plasma T(4) was recorded in the HYPER birds at internal pipping, although plasma T(3) concentration was not affected at this stage. Maternal hyperthyroidism decreased the overall incidence of ascites in the cold-exposed chickens (10.0 vs. 33.4% for HYPER and CON groups, respectively). Although the effect of maternal PTU or T(4) treatment on plasma thyroid hormones and on the right ventricle-to-total ventricular weight ratio in the broilers was not significant, the cold-exposed healthy CON chicks showed higher hematocrit values, compared with the HYPER birds. It was concluded that maternal hyperthyroidism could decrease the incidence of cold-induced ascites in broiler chickens; however, probable causal mechanisms remain to be elucidated