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To study the key determinants of chronically high inflation in Iran.

Relying on annual data from 1978 to 2019, the authors employ an Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and Error Correction Model (ECM) to study the inflationary effects of monetary and fiscal policies as well as exchange rate swings and sanctions intensification.

The authors find that increase in money supply, depreciation of nominal exchange rate, increase in fiscal deficit and intensification of sanctions are among the key drivers of inflation in Iran. Their impact is profound in the long run, but in the short run only money supply and currency depreciation are significant. Also, when exploring the inflation in different components of Consumer Price Index (CPI), we find robust long- and short-run effects from money supply and exchange rate, while the effects of fiscal deficit and sanctions vary across different components.

The authors contribute to the literature by setting apart the long-vs short-run effects of key variables on inflation in Iran. The authors also employ improved measures of fiscal deficit and sanctions that are shown to be of significance in the long run. Lastly, the authors go beyond the aggregate index and examine the variations in different CPI components.

The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between organizational climate and perceptions of support for innovation, considering that the relationship may be moderated by the type of labor contract the employees have. This moderating effect may have its origins in the perception of reality and the type of knowledge applied on the job. The results drawn from empirical research among 312 observations of the employees in 80 offices of a Spanish financial company enable us to verify, on the one hand, that an organizational climate characterized by support, cohesion and intrinsic recognition favors perceptions of support for innovation; and, on the other hand, that there are differences in the dimensions of climate that favor perceptions of support for innovation depending on the employees' contractual relationship with the organization.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of innovation orientation (IO) on both the implementation levels of soft and hard lean management (LM), as well as innovation performance. It also aims at exploring the effects of soft and hard LM on innovation performance.

The study analyzes survey data collected as a part of a high-performance manufacturing (HPM) project from 238 international manufacturing companies in eight countries and three industries. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were applied to assess construct validity. The study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results demonstrated that innovation-oriented companies tend to adopt aspects of both soft and hard LM. However, the results revealed an insignificant effect of soft and hard LM on innovation performance. The study also showed that innovation performance is positively influenced by an IO. These results indicate that having an IO is vital for enhancing both LM as well as innovation performance. They also evidently suggest that LM is more related to continuous improvement (incremental innovation) rather than (radical) innovation and, as such, is not important for firm’s intent on enhancing their innovation performance.

The current study demonstrates that IO and LM are complementary and not contradicting strategies. The two strategies share many cultural aspects, similarities and commonalities. However, LM is not sufficient to predict innovation performance. Managers of the surveyed manufacturing firms are advised to focus on IO, as it has beneficial impacts on both LM (continuous improvement initiatives) as well as innovation performance. This clearly indicates that placing the emphasis upon radical (innovative) improvement rather than incremental improvement (LM practices) is believed to support continuous and innovative improvement alike.

The relationship between LM and innovation is debated in the existing literature, but the debate is characterized by a lack of empirical evidence. This is one of the first studies that empirically investigates the relationships between IO, LM and innovation performance. It identifies some new insights to direct future research, particularly regarding different innovation types as well as in service organizations.

The aim of this study is to identify and rank the factors of innovation capability (IC) in Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This study focuses on ascertaining the important factors that help in enhancing the IC with an emblematic focus on the MSME sector of India.

This paper proposes a multicriteria decision-making methodology, which is based on fuzzy analytic hierarchical process to prioritize the factors that enhance the IC of MSMEs. Finally, sensitivity analysis is conducted to examine the ranking stability.

Knowledge management is the most important enabler, followed by creativity and idea management and organizational culture.

Several organizations promote the strategic measures for enhancing the IC. To increase their capability to innovate, there is a need to identify, acknowledge and implement the drivers of IC into practice.

Prioritization done in the study facilitates the entrepreneurs to determine the most important factors that need crucial attention in dealing with sensitive issues of IC. Entrepreneurs can take several steps to implement the most important factors for enhancing the IC into practices for meeting the needs of the consumers, generating profits and enhancing the competitiveness.

Accreditation helps to ensure safe and high-quality services in hospitals. Different occupational groups have various hospital accreditation experiences. The purpose of this paper is to investigate nurses’ accreditation experience and its effects on Iranian teaching hospital service quality.

This was a qualitative study involving a phenomenological approach to studying nurses’ hospital accreditation experience and understanding the effects on Iranian teaching hospital service quality. Data were collected using two focus groups in which nurses were selected using purposive sampling. Transcripts were analyzed using content analysis.

Nurses’ experiences showed that hospital administrators and nurses had greater role in implementing accreditation than other occupational groups. Accreditation improved patient-centeredness, patient safety, logistics and managerial processes and decision making. However, a weak incentive system, extra documentation and work stress were negative experiences.

Nurse experience, as the most important care team member, reveals accreditation’s strengths and weaknesses and its effects on service quality.

The author used a phenomenology approach to measure accreditation effects on service quality – a valuable tool for understanding a phenomenon among those that experience hospital accreditation processes.

The purpose of this paper is to determine accreditation effects on Iranian military hospital health service quality through nurses’ viewpoints.

The paper is a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study. Sampling drew from a hospital nurse census (n=160). Descriptive statistics were used to analyze participant demographics and nurses’ views. Linear regression analysis determined the independent variables’ overall effect on the accreditation quality results dimension (dependent variable).

From the nurses’ viewpoints, accreditation effects on services quality mean score was 3.60±0.61. Linear regression analysis showed that leadership and quality management were identified as the most important accreditation quality predictors. The R² value (0.698) showed that nearly 70 percent of the dependent variable changes were affected by the independent variables.

This study gives hospital managers a deeper insight into accreditation and its effects on military hospital service quality. Military hospitals benefit from military organization such as hierarchy and command chain, so managers should employ these characteristics to adopt appropriate policies to promote human resource management as a competitive advantage. Furthermore, results will guide public and private hospital managers on how to manage organizational variables that benefit from accreditation.

Accreditation was introduced as a hospital quality improvement program. However, implementing accreditation programs should be cost-effective. Hospital managers and employees should feel that accreditation can improve service quality. Nurses had positive viewpoints about accreditation and its effects on military hospital service quality.

In the present paper, the new concept of “memory dependent derivative” in the Pennes’ bioheat transfer and heat-induced mechanical response in human living tissue with variable thermal conductivity and rheological properties of the volume is considered.

A problem of cancerous layered with arbitrary thickness is considered and solved analytically by Kirchhoff and Laplace transformation. The analytical expressions for temperature, displacement and stress are obtained in the Laplace transform domain. The inversion technique for Laplace transforms is carried out using a numerical technique based on Fourier series expansions.

Comparisons are made with the results anticipated through the coupled and generalized theories. The influence of variable thermal, volume materials properties and time-delay parameters for all the regarded fields for different forms of kernel functions is examined.

The results indicate that the thermal conductivity and volume relaxation parameters and MDD parameter play a major role in all considered distributions. This dissertation is an attempt to provide a theoretical thermo-viscoelastic structure to help researchers understand the complex thermo-mechanical processes present in thermal therapies.

Yoghurt is most popular and more acceptable throughout the world because of its general positive image among consumers because of its diverse nutritional and therapeutic properties and can be the most suitable probiotic carrier. Key factors for consumer’s inclination towards functional foods are increased awareness for healthy foods because of health deterioration resulting from busy lifestyles, growing healthcare cost and the aspiration for an improved quality life in later years. Yoghurt is still not consumed in certain parts of the world because of a lack of a cultural tradition of consuming yogurt and further people are not aware of the health benefits associated with yogurt consumption. In this study an attempt has been to project probiotic yoghurt as a functional food in the current era of self-care and complementary medicine.

Attempt has been made to review the literature on the biochemical activities of yoghurt cultures and their behavior in association with diverse probiotic cultures. Both review and research papers related to biochemical activities and functional properties of yoghurt cultures in association with probiotics and their health benefits published in diverse journals under Pub Med and Science Direct have been considered. Keywords used for data search included functional foods, yoghurt, probiotic, health benefits, etc.

Functional properties of yoghurt can be further enhanced with fortification of minerals and vitamins or inclusion of probiotic cultures. Diversity in biochemical behavior yoghurt cultures in association with different probiotic cultures has been reported. Conjugated application of probiotics with yoghurt cultures would result in a product with enhanced functional properties to extend health benefits.

Inclusion of probiotic cultures in yoghurt is suggested to extend the functional properties of normal yoghurt, thus providing necessary nutrients, improving health and preventing or reducing nutrition-related diseases. Regular intake of probiotic yoghurt is suggested for healthy lifestyles, as it will help in retaining their health and reduce the potentially long-term risk of disease. Food industries can have profit-driven business by projecting the probiotic yoghurt as a functional food.

Even if there is a wealth of research highlighting the key role of values and cultural significance for heritage management and, defining specific interventions on built heritage, seldom the relation to their leading values and values hierarchy have been researched. How do values and interventions relate? What values trigger most and least interventions on heritage? How do these values relate and characterize interventions? And what are the values hierarchy that make the interventions on built heritage differ?

This paper conducts a systematic content analysis of 69 international doctrinal documents – mainly adopted by Council of Europe, UNESCO, and ICOMOS, during 1877 and 2021. The main aim is to reveal and compare the intervention concepts and their definitions, in relation to values. The intensity of the relationship between intervention concepts and values is determined based on the frequency of mentioned values per intervention.

There were three key findings. First, historic, social, and aesthetical values were the most referenced values in international doctrinal documents. Second, while intervention concepts revealed similar definitions and shared common leading values, their secondary values and values hierarchy, e.g. aesthetical or social values, are the ones influencing the variation on their definitions. Third, certain values show contradictory roles in the same intervention concepts from different documents, e.g. political and age values.

This paper explores a novel comparison between different interventions concepts and definitions, and the role of values. The results can contribute to support further research and practice on clarifying the identified differences.