Introduction: In contemporary organizations such as hospitals, leadership effectiveness and employees' satisfaction are two important leadership outcomes. HEAD NURSES’ leadership styles and their perFORmance play a key role to increase their effectiveness. Choosing an appropriate leadership style by HEAD NURSES, in addition to improving their perFORmance, enhances NURSES’ job satisfaction and results in organizational goal achievement. This study aimed to determine HEAD NURSES’ leadership style, as perceived by NURSES, and its relationship with leadership outcomes in the educational-treatment centers of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran.Methods: In this descriptive- analytical research perFORmed in 2015, the research population was all the NURSES in educational- treatment centers of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences (n=950). Using stratified proportional random sampling, 360 NURSES were chosen as the research sample. The research instrument was Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), developed by Bass and Avolio.Results: The results demonstrated that HEAD NURSES applied a combination of three leadership styles: transFORmational, transactional, and laissez- fair. The result of multiple regression analysis showed that inspirational motivation, idealized influence, individual consideration and laissez-fair leadership accounted FOR 85% of the variance of leadership effectiveness. Individual consideration, idealized influence, management- by- exception active, management- by- exception passive and contingent reward accounted FOR 74% of variance of NURSES’ job satisfaction.Conclusions: The results of this study revealed that there was a significant statistical relationship between HEAD NURSES’ leadership styles and their leadership effectiveness and NURSES’ job.

This paper argues that it is not reasonable FOR a critical rationalist to be a religious believer in the Abrahamic tradition. The argument is distinctive, in that it takes seriously the critical rationalist view that we should abandon ‘justificationist’ argument. What this means, is that the structure of argument then becomes a matter of offering theories as resolutions of problems, and then judging how they fare in the face of ongoing critical appraisal. The paper surveys issues in several areas, including God and what is good; homosexuality; mysticism; and messianic ideas. It argues that, unless the believer engages in intellectual retreat (something that is unacceptable FOR the critical rationalist), the problem-situation facing the believer appears to be so daunting that it would be unreasonable FOR them to hope that they can overcome it.

In modern times many militant atheist thinkers and activists have tried to promote the idea that religions, as well as religious ways of life, are one of the main, if not the main source of evil in the social arena. Some other non-believer scholars, while taking a respectful approach towards religions and religious people, maintaining that it is more rational FOR people and communities to adopt a non-religious outlook on life and become members of the community of non-believers. In this paper, I do not take issue with the militant non-believers. The reason is that their approach to religion is so ideologically driven that it leaves not much room FOR proper rational discussions; it only invites some polemical replies. My aim here is, instead, to enter into a dialogue with those non-believer scholars who view religion in a measured and rational way. My intention is to critically assess the claims of this latter group of scholars and explain why, contrary to what they suggest, certain interpretations of religion, and in particular, the Islamic faith, can provide them with better alternatives than their atheist outlooks. The arguments of this paper are mostly in reply to the views expressed by Professor Shearmur in his paper on critical rationalism and religion.

Purpose: The present study aims to identify and explain the futures of Iranian provinces in the competition FOR the development of NBIC technological convergence (synergy between nanotechnology, biotechnology, inFORmation technology and cognitive sciences) with a focus on Yazd province. Method: This research, which has been conducted with a qualitative and descriptive approach, is classified as an exploratory futures-study. In this way, the relevant research records were first reviewed to compile a list of drivers in the development of convergent technologies. The list was then refined and prioritized to identify two key drivers, with the Delphi process attended by fourteen experts. By intersecting the uncertainties of these two drivers, four scenarios of the province's future in technological convergence competition emerged. Findings: The two key drivers affecting the success of the province in the competition FOR convergent technologies are: the rate of development of the innovation ecosystem and the amount of financial resources allocated to this process. Based on this, four scenarios of the future situation of the province in this field were identified, which have been named as "Vanguard", "Buyer", "Remnant" and "Hired". Conclusion: In order FOR the provinces to be able to succeed in the FORthcoming competitions in the production and operation of convergent technologies, it is NECESSARY to plan FOR strengthening the ecosystem infrastructure from now; at the same time, it is NECESSARY to make efficient efFORts to provide sufficient financial resources FOR the research and commercialization of these technologies.

The problem of personal identity among others may stem from the following question—what does be the person that you are, from one day to the next, necessarily consist of? The diachronic problem of personal identity raises question on the NECESSARY and sufficient conditions FOR the identity of the person over time. The synchronic problem is grounded in the question of what features or traits characterize a given person at one time. To answer these questions, John Locke discarded the soul and the body as NECESSARY and sufficient substances FOR personal identity over time. He accepted consciousness as the only criterion FOR personal identity; the only thing capable of remaining the same and preserving personal identity through change. Though Locke’s argument is somewhat clear and coherent but what remains vague and incoherent is embedded in the question—what exactly is consciousness? How and why should it be the basis or criterion FOR the determination of personal identity? Using the method of critical analysis, I argue that Locke’s choice of consciousness as the determinant of personal identity, though quite novel, is incoherent and vague. Secondly, Locke had already presumed and anticipated clearly though fallaciously the very thing he wishes to substantiate. I thereFORe conclude that Locke’s argument is just another way of TRYing to escape but inadvertently prolonging the difficulty of apparently articulating a distinction between the psychological approach and physiological approach to the problem of personal identity. However, in my submission, I propose the concept of the “other” as alternative approach— a sort of an extrinsic-intrinsic approach to the problem of personal identity.

Purpose: Managers are one of the important elements of an organization, FOR this reason, in order to draw the future of the organization, it is NECESSARY FOR the planners to specify the conditions of their selection and appointment. ThereFORe, the current research has been done with the aim of identifying and analyzing the components of selecting future principals.Method: In this research, comparative and benchmarking method is used as a prospective approach. This approach is based on the belief that today's advanced organizations/countries can be considered as a model FOR the future of another organization/countries in their respective subjects. FOR this, first, the fields of comparison and benchmarking were determined using Brody's four-step comparison method; then the countries of Canada, Finland, Australia, South Africa, and Japan were selected according to the qualitative balance value in the international advanced TEAMS test, human development index, life quality index(health, instruction, and welfare), education quality index, and other scientific-scholarly indexes; finally, by extracting the criteria FOR the selection and appointment of principals through content analysis and comparison with Iran, the proposed framework FOR Iran has been presented.Findings: A total of 61 components FOR the selection of secondary school principals were identified from among the studies conducted in the selected countries in this article. By extracting the commonalities and differences of each of the components among the countries, it was found that the highest index of manager selection and appointment belongs to Japan and the lowest one is related to Finland.Conclusion: There are similarities between the components of selection of principals of secondary schools in Iran and selected countries. In Iran, special attention should be paid to important components such as adherence to religious principles, appropriate personality traits, creativity and innovation, motivation to develop capabilities, professional growth, power of supervision and accountability, social image, leader skills, and purposefulness and FOResight.

One may say that The Open Society and Its Enemies (OS) offered in 1945 the first complete elaboration of the general approach proposed by Karl Popper, namely his ‘critical rationalism’, a bold generalization of the fallibilist falsificationism in the domain of the empirical sciences masterly proposed in Logik der FORschung (1934). The political content of The OS has been critically discussed. Nevertheless, not all people insist on the equally important moral dimension of the book, giving it its unity, I submit. Without morality, no critical discussion, no reason, no open society, let us say in a nutshell. I would argue that according to Popper, a strictly Christian morality of love would not be the appropriate emotional companion of critical rationalism, but that the less demanding moral emotion of sympathy or compassion is perhaps NECESSARY to give it its FORce against violence. I give some support to this line of argument. In my view, Popper proposed a somewhat unarticulated critical rationalist ‘emotivism’ of sorts. The emotion of compassion is NECESSARY FOR triggering our moral decisions and values, which are the ultimate basis of the choice FOR a reason against violence.

There are two approaches FOR simulating memory as well as learning in artificial intelligence; the functionalistic approach and the cognitive approach. The NECESSARY condition to put the second approach into account is to provide a model of brain activity that contains a quite good congruence with observational facts such as mistakes and FORgotten experiences. Given that human memory has a solid core that includes the components of our identity, our family and our hometown, the major and determinative events of our lives, and the countless repeated and accepted facts of our culture, the more we go to the peripheral spots the data becomes flimsier and more easily exposed to oblivion. It was essential to propose a model in which the topographical differences are quite distinguishable. In our proposed model, we have translated this topographical situation into quantities, which are attributed to the nodes. The result is an edge-weighted graph with mass-based values on the nodes which demonstrates the importance of each atomic proposition, as a truth, FOR an intelligent being. Furthermore, it dynamically develops and modifies, and in successive phases, it changes the mass of the nodes and weight of the edges depending on gathered inputs from the environment.

A B S T R A C TSatisfaction is considered one of the effective methods FOR evaluating the success of urban development plans and projects, and it is a tool to measure which type of housing and residential environment meets the needs, expectations, and aspirations of residents. This article aims to compare Amiriyeh and Pay-eToop neighborhoods in Bojnord city in terms of residents' satisfaction with living in these neighborhoods. Using a questionnaire, the data was obtained by a survey from 229 HEADs of sample households living in Bojnoord city. The residents' satisfaction is analyzed by 26 indicators set as home and neighborhood indices. The data is entered into SPSS software to run the One Sample T-Test and calculate statistical parameters. Also, the data is entered in Arc GIS in accordance with the UTM coordinates of the responder's locations to provide a GIS point layer to use zoning maps to be drawn. Residential satisfaction is lower than average and slightly higher in Pay-eToop than in Amiriyeh. Also, the average score of the indicators that are set as home indices is lower than those FOR neighborhood indices. The zoning maps indicate that most parts of the neighborhoods show an average level of satisfaction with housing, and the maps of different indicators are not much different from each other. The role of physical indicators in low satisfaction is much more significant than social indicators. To improve satisfaction, paying attention to the neighborhood regeneration and improving the housing quality is NECESSARYExtended AbstractIntroductionSatisfactory housing is one of the most valuable aspects of life and one of the main elements of people's living standards. The higher the level of satisfaction with a place, the more people will feel a sense of belonging to that place and feel more relaxed about being there. The feeling of satisfaction from a place can cause the positive effects of the place in the process of relationships in which the environment is being FORmed and carried out. On the one hand, satisfaction measurement is considered one of the effective methods of evaluating the success of urban programs and plans. On the other hand, it is a tool to measure which type of housing and residential environment currently meets its residents' needs, expectations, and aspirations. MethodologyThe residents' satisfaction is analyzed by 26 indicators set as home and neighborhood indices. A questionnaire gathers the data. Household HEADs in the studied neighborhoods (Amirieh and Pay-e Toop) are randomly selected as 229 sample people. The sample people evaluate the items in the questionnaire in a 5-range of the Likert scale from very high to very low. The qualified range was then changed to quantified scores from 5 to 1. Afterward, they were entered into SPSS software to run the One Sample T-Test and calculate other statistical parameters. The address of each respondent is included in the questionnaires, and based on the address, the UTM coordinates of the respondent are determined using Google Earth. Then, the inFORmation from the questionnaires is entered into the GIS according to the coordinates to provide a GIS point layer FOR drawing zoning maps. Results and discussionThe score of 2.75, which is the average figure of the evaluation scores FOR all the indicators of both neighborhoods, indicates that residential satisfaction is lower than the assumed average score (3). The average scores are 2.90 and 2.57 FOR Pay-e Toop and Amirieh neighborhoods, respectively, and they indicate that the residential satisfaction in the first is slightly higher than the other. Pay-e Toop is the oldest neighborhood in Bojnoord, which accommodates the traditional complex of shops (Bazar) and essential physical elements of historical eras, such as the city's citadel. In addition to the high proportion of immigrants, it also includes deep-rooted and native families that have strong social relationships. Also, the average score FOR the neighborhood indices is slightly higher than FOR the home indices. The average figure FOR all 26 indicators is lower than the assumed average score (3) and indicates a lower residential satisfaction. FIVE indicators with the higher satisfaction score are as follows: relationship with neighbors, living in the ancestral neighborhood, the situation of streets and ways, living with relatives, and the quality of wastewater disposal. On the contrary, lower satisfaction scores belong to the indicators of access to shopping centers, healthcare service centers, the size of homes, and access to public transportation, respectively. Despite the fame of the gardens of Bojnord in previous centuries, in recent decades, most of the gardens disappeared, especially in the city's central business district, which corresponds to the two studied neighborhoods; there is a small area of land covered by parks and green spaces. Green spaces are mainly the small green strips on the edge or in the middle of the streets. FOR Amiriye and Pay-e Toop neighborhoods, the Pearson correlation coefficient between the respondents' education levels and their scores of residential satisfaction are -0.36 and -0.23, respectively. It implies that residential satisfaction has an inverse relationship with education. Also, the correlation coefficient between the residence length in the neighborhood and residential satisfaction scores are +.001 and -0.29, respectively (FOR Amirieh and Pay-e Toop neighborhoods). It also indicates no relation FOR the first neighborhood and an inverse relation FOR the other.The zoning map of all the indicators shows that in more than 90% of the neighborhood area, the level of satisfaction is in the medium range. In Amirieh, the parts with low satisfaction are scattered. It can be said that the northeastern edge of the Amirieh neighborhood and the southwestern edge of the Pay-e Toop neighborhood have lower satisfaction. ConclusionThe role of physical indicators in low satisfaction is much more significant than social indicators. The physical components of the neighborhoods caused a low level of satisfaction. On the contrary, higher satisfaction is revealed from the socio-cultural components. Households prefer the quality of services more than the availability of services. In medium-sized cities such as Bojnoord, neighborhood relations, closeness to relatives, and living in neighborhoods where the ancestors lived are still decisive in creating residential satisfaction. To improve life satisfaction, paying attention to housing quality and the regeneration of both neighborhoods is NECESSARY. Also, improvement, retrofitting, enhancing the quality of the building, and improving the quality of urban services, especially healthcare services, public transportation, and commercial services, should be considered. FundingThere is no funding support. Authors’ ContributionAuthors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none. Conflict of InterestAuthors declared no conflict of interest. Acknowledgments We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.

Non-cooperative intelligent control agents (ICAs) with dedicated cost functions, can lead the system to poor perFORmance and in some cases, closed-loop instability. A robust solution to this challenge is to place the ICAs at the feedback Nash equilibrium point (FNEP) of the differential game between them. This paper introduces the designation of a robust decentralized infinite horizon LQR control system based on the FNEP FOR a linear time-invariant system. FOR this purpose, two control strategies are defined. The first one is a centralized infinite horizon LQR (CIHLQR) problem (i.e. a supervisory problem), and the second one is a decentralized control problem (i.e. an infinite horizon linear-quadratic differential game). Then, while examining the optimal solution of each of the above strategies on the perFORmance of the other, the NECESSARY and sufficient conditions FOR the equivalence of the two problems are presented. In the absence of the conditions, by using the least-squares error criterion, an approximated CIHLQR controller is presented. It is shown that the theorems could be extended from a two-agent control system to a multi-agent system. Finally, the results are evaluated using the simulation results of a Two-Area non-reheat power system.