Determination of Optimal Leadership Styles through Knowledge Management: A Case from the Automotive Industry

This study proposed a model to examine the impact of various leadership styles on knowledge management. This case study identified the best leadership style, which can affect the key factors of the knowledge management success. The statistical population was composed of all staff of the Pars Khodro Company headquarters in Iran, in which 226 people were accordingly chosen as the sample. The required data for examining research hypotheses were also collected using questionnaire. Results revealed the impact of leadership styles on knowledge management. The transformational leadership style was consequently found to have a positive and significant impact on the knowledge management key success factors, in contrast with other leadership styles including self-management, pragmatic, conservative and structure-based

Seismic fragility assessment of high-rise steel buildings strengthened with moment resisting and bracing frames and under various soil conditions to the ASCE and Eurocodes regulations

This study aims to focus on finding out some effective methods to assess possibility of collapse and behaviour of high-rise steel structure with different lateral stability systems under seismic loadings. Seismic Fragility functions are a powerful method to characterize the probabilistic vulnerability of buildings under earthquake. Therefore, the aim of this research is to develop fragility curves for moment resisting and braced steel framed buildings (V and X-bracing system) with slim deck flooring system. This thesis investigated the probability of the failure of high-rise steel buildings under seismic loads. There are several experimental and numerical researches implemented in this subject area which have guided other researchers to understand better the failure mechanism and likelihood of buildings under seismic activities. However, due to the lack of research and data with regard to high-rise structures, the main aim of the research is to develop high resolution fragility curve of high-rise buildings and to find out the roles of the different lateral stability systems in resisting earthquake load. Furthermore, the new flooring system, i.e. slim deck flooring system, has been considered in the present research. In addition, the effect of slab steel reinforcement in energy dissipation for the structure is also studied in this research. For this PhD research project, 3D numerical models of buildings have been built. Over two hundred time-history analyses have been made for different types of steel frames with various stability systems in the process to generate the fragility curves. The soil types, peak ground acceleration of earthquake and the connection of structural elements and different design guidelines used in the analysis have been taken into the account. During the analysis, three dimensional components of ground motion acceleration have been applied to the foundation of the structure. The method of generating fragility curves is analytical. This method is beneficial regarding construction cost and accuracy. However, its drawback is that it is time consuming. In addition, the energy dissipation and collapse mechanism of structure are the key aspects that have been take into the account alongside of the study. This study aims at using a time-history analysis to simulate the possibility of failure in high-rise braced structures under seismic activities and to develop the fragility curve. In addition, the analysis will be carried out based on the Eurocode and ASCE and there will be a comparison of Eurocode’s results versus ASCE’s outcomes

Prediction of the treatment response in ovarian cancer: a ctDNA approach.

Ovarian cancer is the eighth most commonly occurring cancer in women. Clinically, the limitation of conventional screening and monitoring approaches inhibits high throughput analysis of the tumor molecular markers toward prediction of treatment response. Recently, analysis of liquid biopsies including circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) open new way toward cancer diagnosis and treatment in a personalized manner in various types of solid tumors. In the case of ovarian carcinoma, growing pre-clinical and clinical studies underscored promising application of ctDNA in diagnosis, prognosis, and prediction of treatment response. In this review, we accumulate and highlight recent molecular findings of ctDNA analysis and its associations with treatment response and patient outcome. Additionally, we discussed the potential application of ctDNA in the personalized treatment of ovarian carcinoma. ctDNA-monitoring usage during the ovarian cancer treatments procedures

Seismic vulnerability of air traffic control towers

Airports are one of the critical infrastructures that play an essential role in managing natural disasters through receiving or sending aid and supplies. Air traffic control (ATC) towers are an inseparable part of each airport as the performance of airports depends on the functionality of their ATC towers. Many ATC towers have been designed and constructed based on older versions of modern seismic codes in which seismic design has followed a force-based design approach. This study addresses the seismic vulnerability of three in-service ATC towers which have been designed and constructed according to a force-based design concept. The height of the towers ranges from 24 to 52 m. Fragility curves have been used for the seismic vulnerability study of these towers. For the derivation of seismic fragility curves, 45 earthquake records were selected and classified into low, medium and high classes based on their ratio of peak ground acceleration (PGA) to peak ground velocity (PGV). It was observed that records with a low PGA/PGV ratio imposed the highest level of damage to the towers. However, when towers were subjected to the records with a high PGA/PGV ratio, the damage intensity was not significant. Results indicated that the intensity of seismic-induced damage to the tallest tower was significantly more than that of the shortest tower. It was concluded that only the shortest tower could satisfy the expected seismic performance objectives

Influence of the Malaysia’s national annex for seismic design on the size and reinforcement weight of low-rise buildings

In early 2017, Malaysia's national annex for the seismic design of structures was published and led to some concerns regarding the increase in the construction cost of buildings. This study investigated the change in the reinforcement weights of beams and columns due to seismic design based on Malaysia's national annex. For this purpose, buildings with different numbers of stories (i.e., 3- and 6-storey), ductility classes (i.e., low and medium), and soil types (i.e., stiff and soft soil) were designed through two different methods. The first method followed the conventional design practice in Malaysia, in which the BS 8110 code was used to design structural elements only for gravity loads. However, the second design method was based on Malaysia's national annex and Eurocode 2, and buildings were designed for gravity loads and seismic actions. The results showed that buildings with low ductility class constructed on the soft soil had the largest increase in the reinforcement weights compared to the conventional design. On the other hand, the buildings with medium ductility class constructed on stiff soil had lesser reinforcement weights than the conventional design