THE IMPACT OF AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP ON JOB SATISFACTION AND TEAM COMMITMENT

One of the challenges toward organization is maintaining good employees in competitive business environment in order to achieve their goals. Employees’ feeling and attitude to their job, team and organization is an important factor which can’t be ignored by organization. In other words, the employees’ effective response to different aspect of job and organization will have several effects on their performance and behavior. One of the important factors in all organizations is organizational leadership as one of the most key strategies to achieving this purpose. Authentic leadership as one of the areas raised in the literature of modern leadership in recent years has been considered by researchers and practitioners. In this study, we explored the impact of authentic leadership and its elements on team commitment and job satisfaction. 80 questionnaires were filled by employees and analyzed by SPSS 18.0 software. According to obtained results, there were meaningful and positive correlation between authentic leadership, job satisfaction and team commitment. Also we conclude that teams with more authentic characteristics in their leaders, had more satisfied and committed employees.authentic leadership, balanced processing, job satisfaction, moral/ethics, self awareness, team commitment, transparency.

Malaria elimination in Iran, importance and challenges

Background: The aim of study is to assess the importance and challenges of Malaria elimination (ME) in Iran's health system. Material: Opinion of experts from Ministry of Health and Medical Education and the chancellors of medical universities affected by malaria were gathered using Focus Group Discussions and in­depth interviews. We asked them about the importance and main challenges of ME in Iran. Results: Main factors on importance of ME were: it's a struggle to reach to equity in the poorest regions of county, prevention of emerging disease in susceptible regions, lowering the cost of control and its effects on the region's socioeconomic condition. Main challenges were Iran's long border with malaria­endemic countries Pakistan and Afghanistan and illegal immigrants, underdevelopment in rural areas, system's insensitivity and diagnosis problem due to reduction of cases. Conclusion: Quantitative and holistic researches are needed for assessing the consequences of ME

Effect of harvesting frequency and maturity stage of Jerusalem artichoke forage on yield, chemical composition and in vitro fermentation of the tubers and forage

Aim of study: To evaluate the effect of maturity stage and harvesting frequency of Jerusalem artichoke (JA) forage on the nutritional quality of the tubers and forages.Area of study: The plant cultivation and laboratory experiments were carried out in Karaj (Alborz, Iran) and Tehran (Tehran, Iran), respectively.Material and methods: Forages were harvested every 60, 90 and 120 days during the growing season (four, three and two harvests per year, respectively). Tubers were harvested just once, at the end of the growing season, from plots with four, three and two forage cuts per year. Biomass production, chemical composition and in vitro ruminal fermentation of the forages and tubers were assessed.Main results: Compared to 90 and 120 days, the forages harvested every 60 days contained the highest (p<0.05) yearly dry matter (DM) biomass (27.16 t/ha), crude protein (98.6 to 145 g/kg DM), organic matter digestibility (0.607 to 0.691) and microbial biomass production (350 to 369 g/kg DM). Compared to 60 and 90 days, harvesting JA forage every 120 days caused the tubers with the higher (p<0.05) water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC), in vitro digestibility and DM yield (7.63 t/ha). Jerusalem artichoke forages and tubers contained the low phenolics (4.93 to 13.2 g/kg DM) and nitrate (1.12 to 3.19 g/kg DM). Overall, the best harvesting interval of JA forage to achieve tubers with the highest yearly yield, WSC and digestibility was every 120 days, while the highest nutritive value and yield of the forages were observed with harvesting JA every 60 days.Research highlights: The best harvesting interval of JA forage to obtain the highest yearly DM, protein and energy biomass from both tubers and forage was every 60 days

Hybrid AC/DC Provisional Microgrid Planning Model Considering Converter Aging

Building integrated photovoltaics is one of the key technologies when it comes to electricity generation in buildings, districts or urban areas. However, the potential of building façades for the BIPV system, especially in urban areas, is often neglected. Façade-mounted building integrated photovoltaics could contribute to supply the energy demand of buildings in dense urban areas with economic feasibility where the availability of suitable rooftop areas is low. This paper deals with the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of building integrated photovoltaic systems (BIPV) in the capitals of all the European member state countries plus Norway and Switzerland and presents a metric to investigate a proper subsidy or incentive for BIPV systems. The results showed that the average LCOE of the BIPV system as a building envelope material for the entire outer skin of buildings in Europe is equal to 0.09 Euro per kWh if its role as the power generator is considered in the economic calculations. This value will be 0.15 Euro per kWh if the cost corresponding to its double function in the building is taken into the economic analysis (while the average electricity price is 0.18 Euro per kWh). The results indicate that the BIPV generation cost in most case studies has already reached grid parity. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that on average in Europe, the BIPV system does not need a feed-in tariff if the selling price to the grid is equal to the purchasing price from the grid. Various incentive plans based on the buying/selling price of electricity from/to the main grid together with LCOE of the BIPV systems is also investigated. View Full-TextpublishedVersio

Automatic summarisation of Instagram social network posts Combining semantic and statistical approaches

The proliferation of data and text documents such as articles, web pages, books, social network posts, etc. on the Internet has created a fundamental challenge in various fields of text processing under the title of "automatic text summarisation". Manual processing and summarisation of large volumes of textual data is a very difficult, expensive, time-consuming and impossible process for human users. Text summarisation systems are divided into extractive and abstract categories. In the extractive summarisation method, the final summary of a text document is extracted from the important sentences of the same document without any modification. In this method, it is possible to repeat a series of sentences and to interfere with pronouns. However, in the abstract summarisation method, the final summary of a textual document is extracted from the meaning and significance of the sentences and words of the same document or other documents. Many of the works carried out have used extraction methods or abstracts to summarise the collection of web documents, each of which has advantages and disadvantages in the results obtained in terms of similarity or size. In this work, a crawler has been developed to extract popular text posts from the Instagram social network with appropriate preprocessing, and a set of extraction and abstraction algorithms have been combined to show how each of the abstraction algorithms can be used. Observations made on 820 popular text posts on the social network Instagram show the accuracy (80%) of the proposed system

European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis persica) as a biomarker of environmental pollution in Golestan and Mazandaran provinces, Iran

Anthropogenic environmental changes are hypothesized as main reasons for animal species population declines. Heavy metals contamination is one of the worst threats to animals among human-caused threats. As most of the heavy metals bioaccumulate in organisms, analyzing concentrations of heavy metals in long living animals, such as turtles, would be very useful for biomonitoring of environmental quality. The European pond turtle is classified as a Near Threatened in the red list of International Union for Conservation of Nature. The objective of this study was to obtain information on heavy metals contamination in this species, as a sentinels, to evaluate the overall health of both the European pond turtles and their ecosystem in Golestan and Mazandaran provinces. Biological samples of 10 living and 15 dead European pond turtles were analyzed by atomic absorption spectrophotometer for Zn, Pb, Cu, and Cd contaminations. Highest concentration of Zn (202.6 \ub1 58.5 \u3bcg g-1), Cd (4.4 \ub1 1.3 \u3bcg g-1) and Cu (3.8 \ub1 1.7 \u3bcg g-1) was detected in livers and the highest accumulation of Pb (45.6 \ub116.3 \u3bcg g-1) occurred in kidneys. Positive correlations were detected among Zn, Pb and Cd tissue concentrations and carapaces curve length. Heavy metal levels were higher in males than females. Heavy metals contamination of sampled turtles stood in high degree. However, there is clearly a need to evaluate heavy metals physiologic effects on European pond turtles

Effect of hyperglycemic condition on observed surface area to volume ratio of human cancerous cells

The human blood basal glucose level is a completely controlled range. Information on the relationship between culture glucose concentration and changes in the cell's surface area, volume and surface area to volume (S/V) ratio are lacking. Cancerous epithelial-like cell lines SW480, SW742 and T-47D were cultured in mediums nourished with 4.7 mM per liter of glucose as the control group and three other groups with glucose concentrations of  9.4, 14.1 and 18.8 mM at 37 °C for 48hr. Digital images of cells were analyzed using the ImageJ software. Observed changes in surface area, volume, and surface area to volume (S/V) ratio were significantly (P<0.05) different between the control group and the X4 group (18.8 mM glucose) in the three cell lines tested. Cultured cells responded delicately but sharply to glucose elevation. The goal of this research is to show the dictating of changes via pathologic conditions in cellular levels that could be a good answer to changing the body metabolic parameters. Besides the S/V ratio could be studied as a variant parameter in other metabolic challenges

Removal of Pb Ions from Aqueous Solutions Using Melamine Modified Nanographene Oxide

In recent years, various methods have been used to remove heavy metals from aquatic environments; one of which is the adsorption process. Graphene oxide nanoparticles have received much attention due to their high adsorption capacity and high surface area. In this study, melamine-modified nanographene oxide adsorbent was used to remove Pb from aqueous solution. Experiments were performed at pH (3-8), temperature (15-50 °C), Pb concentration (5-200) mg/l, adsorbent (0.01-0.06 g), and contact time (15-150 min). Results showed that the maximum Pb adsorption efficiency by modified nanographene oxide occurred at pH = 6, concentration of 20 mg/l, contact time of 60 min, ambient temperature of 22 °C and adsorbent dosage of 0.01 g. In the study of metal equilibrium isotherms, the Freundlich model was more consistent with the experimental data. Given that the Freundlich model is used to describe heterogeneous adsorbent surfaces, it can be concluded that lead adsorption by graphene oxide nanoparticles has been done in several layers. Modified nanographene oxide with its large surface area, hydrophobicity, high negative charge density, ease of fabrication and high adsorption could be used as an effective adsorbent for metal removal. According to the results of this study, a melamine-modified nanographene oxide adsorbent with a high efficiency of 98.8% can be used to remove lead from aqueous solutions

Removal of Nickel (II) ions from Aqueous Solutions Using Chicken Feather Nanoparticles: Study of Kinetic, Isotherm and Thermodynamic Models

Nickel is highly toxic and directly associate with health risk such as damage to kidney, liver and central nervous system. This study evaluated the potential of a chicken feather for the removal of nickel from aqueous solutions. Freundlich, Langmuir and Temkin isotherm models were used to characterize the bio sorption of the mentioned metal onto the chicken feather. In the batch system, parameters of pH (4-8), adsorbent dosage (0.01- 0.06 g/l), contact time (15-120 min), nickel initial concentration (5-200 mg/l), and temperature (15-40 °C) were studied. Studies have shown that the maximum Nickel uptake efficiency occurred at pH = 6, concentration of 50 mg / g, contact time of 60 minutes, ambient temperature of 25 ° C and adsorbent mass of 0.03 g. The thermodynamic parameters such as Gibb's Free Energy (ΔG), Enthalpy (ΔH) and Entropy (ΔS) indicated that the adsorption of nickel ion were spontaneous and endothermic at 288–313 °K. Comparing the determination coefficients between measured data and obtained value from pseudo- second-order model (R2 = 0.95) and pseudo- first-order model (R2 = 0.65) showed that the pseudo- second-order model describes experimental data better. Also, comparing the Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherm for nickel adsorption by chicken feather nanoparticles showed that Freundlich isotherm (R2 = 0.87) was more proper than Langmuir isotherm (R2 = 0.82) and Temkin isotherm (R2 = 0.67) in describing adsorption process. According to the results of this study, chicken feather nanoparticles adsorbent with a high efficiency of 96.8% can be used to remove Nickel from aqueous solutions

The Relationship between Life Cycle and Cost of Equity on the Firms Listed In Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE)

The difference of cost of equity in different life cycles of firms from growth to decline can help the firms to provide finance and understand the effect of life cycle in costs of financial provision with the important consequences in strategic planning of firms. This research investigates the stages of life cycle of firms and costs of equity with data from 113 firms of The Firms Listed in Tehran Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2014. Testing the hypotheses, multiple regressions was used based on the combined data. The results showed that the cost of equity in the stages of decline increases and in growth and mature stage decreases than that in shake out stage. The findings of this research are consistent with life cycle theory of firms