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Abstract Background Critical limb ischemia (CLI) is associated with increased risk of tissue loss, leading to significant morbidity and mortality. Therapeutic angiogenesis using cell-based treatments, notably mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), is essential for enhancing blood flow to ischemic areas in subjects suffering from CLI. The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of using placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells (P-MSCs) in patients with CLI. Methods This phase I dose-escalation study investigated P-MSCs in nine CLI patients who were enrolled into each of the two dosage groups (20 × 106 and 60 × 106 cells), delivered intramuscularly twice, two months apart. The incidence of treatment-related adverse events was the primary endpoint. The decrease in inflammatory cytokines, improvement in the ankle-brachial pressure index (ABI), maximum walking distance, vascular collateralization, alleviation of rest pain, healing of ulceration, and avoidance of major amputation in the target leg were the efficacy outcomes. Results All dosages of P-MSCs, including the highest tested dose of 60 × 106 cells, were well tolerated. During the 6-month follow-up period, there was a statistically significant decrease in IL-1 and IFN-γ serum levels following P-MSC treatment. The blood lymphocyte profile of participants with CLI did not significantly differ, suggesting that the injection of allogeneic cells did not cause T-cell proliferation in vivo. We found clinically substantial improvement in rest pain, ulcer healing, and maximum walking distance after P-MSC implantation. In patients with CLI, we performed minor amputations rather than major amputations. Angiography was unable to demonstrate new small vessels formation significantly. Conclusion The observations from this phase I clinical study indicate that intramuscular administration of P-MSCs is considered safe and well tolerated and may dramatically improve physical performance and minimize inflammatory conditions in patients with CLI. Trial registration: IRCT, IRCT20210221050446N1. Registered May 09, 2021.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the acquiring and acquired firms in the context of governance and firm factors on the performance of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) based on the dimensions of Earnings per Share (EPS) and Cumulative Abnormal Return (CAR) growth. Methodology: Regarding the methodology, this applied and survey research was empirical and descriptive. The statistical population included all active firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. The sample consisted of blocked trading data related to mergers and acquisitions in the stock exchange. As a result, the final sample included 198 listed M&A firms. Findings: Results show that the acquiring firms’ characteristics, ownership of institutional investors, rate of return on assets and rate of return on equity of shareholders positively and significantly affect M&A’s performance. In addition, the total assets and trans-industrial nature of acquiring firms positively and significantly affect the performance of merged and acquired firms. Furthermore, the buyer’s institutional ownership, amount of acquired ownership, size of the board and size of the non-executive board, as well as their experience at the time of deal positively and significantly affect the performance of merged and acquired firms. The age of the companies at the time of the deal is also an issue which has its own impact. ` Originality: Our research has valuable contributions to the theory of stewardship, agency theory, and resource-based view, which are comprehensively presented in five panels to measure their impact on the performance of mergers and acquisitions. Implications: According to the results, governance and firm factors of acquiring firms impact the likelihood success of M&A transaction. Moreover, the necessity of high value of transparency of companies' financial information during mergers and acquisitions has been confirmed.

Introduction: Small businesses are the driving force behind economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction in developing countries. They are like tools with which economic growth and industrialization are accelerated. In addition, small-scale businesses are known as feeders for large-scale businesses, so they have become more important in pursuit of the economic and social development. Small businesses often struggle to survive and are vulnerable to competition from large companies. This type of business has a significant role in the sustainable economic and social development of a country in terms of contributing to GDP. Because of their strategic role in promoting the economy of a nation in terms of poverty reduction and creation of job opportunities, they are recognized in the management of the country.Objective: The Resource Based View (RBV) believes that the company's resources enable it to gain a competitive advantage and achieve excellent performance in the long run. From a perspective of resources, the strengths and weaknesses of firms have been addressed in order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Thus, in our study, we investigate the factors affecting the performance of small businesses at the firm-level such as ownership, experience, export ratio, inventory and R&D and labor-level factors including skills, education, gender, and manufacturing work force. Firm-specific factors are those that are specific to a business and distinguish it from other companies. Furthermore, in this study, four variables including industry type, total assets, sales and number of employees have been used as control variables.Methodology: The sample consists of small firms located in the urban and rural parts of Iran. The data are collected from 17000 industrial workshops by the Iranian Statistics Center. There is no single definition of small and medium industries in Iran; even at the level of industrial statistics centers of the country, different definitions are used. The Statistics Center of Iran has classified businesses into four categories including 1-9 staff, 10-49 staff, 50-99 staff and more than 100 staff. This is because the most common criterion for defining small and medium-sized industries is the number of employees; in many studies, workshops with 1 to 15 people are considered as small businesses, from 15 to 250 people as medium-sized businesses, and more than that as large businesses. The sample of this research consists of industrial workshops with 15 employees and fewer.. The firms with missing data were excluded. Thus, our final sample included 1527 small business. A correlation matrix and a hierarchical linear regression model were used to test the research hypotheses by the SPSS software.Results and Discussion: The data show that, out of 5643 industrial workshops with 1 to 15 employees in 1991, only 106 workshops (1.88%) were active in exporting their products to foreign countries. The majority of workshop ownership (93.6%) is in the hands of the private sector. Next to that, most of the workshops are cooperatively owned (4.6%) and publicly owned (1.8%), respectively. The results show the impacts of factors such as company experience, research and development activities as well as skills and education of employees on the performance of small businesses in Iran. However, the type of ownership (private, government or cooperative) and export activity have no effect on the performance including assets growth and sales growth. Export activity and export experience did not affect the performance of small businesses in Iran. The findings also show that the type of industry, sales volume and assets play a significant controlling role in the performance of small businesses. In this study, there are some limitations, the most important of which are 1) confidentiality of the data available in the Statistics Center of Iran, which has led to a lot of time and money spent on the research, 2) the unavailability of some financial information of companies causing the researcher in the field not to consider more financial criteria for performance, and 3) the incompleteness of some data and the unavailability of corporate information that has limited the use of more samples.Conclusion: Small businesses that are more involved in manufacturing activities and spend less money on product designs and development processes have more growth in assets and, therefore, perform better than other small companies. The Findings show that experience affects the performance of small businesses. Our findings show that there is a relationship between employee skills and small business performance. In fact, this means that having a skilled staff is essential for a small industrial workshop. Finally, the findings indicate that younger small businesses that have limited R&D activities but well-educated workforce and focus on production have better performance in Iran.

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the quality of board processes on the performance of board roles of state-owned companies. Methods: Due to information confidentiality restrictions, many government companies did not agree to participate in the study; therefore, the research sample was selected based on available sampling and finally 127 companies out of 543 state-owned companies were studied. A questionnaire was used for data collection and the sample consisted of 127 public companies. For data analysis, structural equation model (SEM) with partial least squares (PLS) approach was used. Results: The findings of this study indicate that the performance of board roles is significantly affected by the quality of board decision-making processes. The results show that there are strong significant causal relationships between board processes that some processes play a leading role over other processes. In addition, cognitive conflict and board cohesion indirectly through the two processes of norms of effort and the application of skills and knowledge, have a positive and significant effect on the performance of board roles. On the other hand, norms of effort only indirectly through the process of applying skills and knowledge, have a positive and significant effect on the performance of the strategic role, while norms of effort, both directly and indirectly have a positive and significant effect on the other two roles. Also, the process of applying skills and knowledge has the most direct impact on the performance of board roles, and other processes through the strong mediating role of this process have affected the performance of board roles. Conclusion: The present study tries to show new aspects of the functional behavior of board members in the boardroom by developing a process model. The results of the study show that the behavior of managers at both individual and group levels should be evaluated and strengthened to improve the performance of board roles.

Extended Abstract Abstract In recent years, organizational researchers have been focusing on other types of Unethical behaviors called "Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior (UPB)". Although the nature of the unethical behavior is negative, UPB is different because the purpose of this behavior is to benefit the organization. Our goal in this research is to identify the exact boundaries of UPB, so that the concept of this behavior can be clearly identified. We use systematic review method with searching valid key words such as: Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior, detrimental citizenship behavior, Necessary Evils, Pro- Social Rule Breaking, Illegal corporate behavior, organizational misbehavior and etc. in these databases: Science Direct, Emerald, Sage, Academy of Management Journal and etc. Accordingly, 50 articles were collected between 1958 and 2017, and similar concepts were compared with unethical pro-organizational behavior. The results showed that there is a definite and specific conceptual boundary between Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior and similar concepts. Introduction Existing research has examined the impact of individual characteristics, organizational characteristics and moral events on the incidence of immoral behaviors. But they mainly focus on unethical behaviors such as stealing from the organization, damaging the equipment of the organization, etc., which harm the organization's interests (Kish-Gephart et al., 2010; Trevino et al., 2006), and the behaviors that Violating ethical concepts, ignoring laws, regulations and social values ​​in favor of the organization has been underestimated. These kinds of behaviors are called “Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior (UPB)” (Umpheress & Bingham, 2011). Case study In order to select articles, a list of titles and abstract of all articles were prepared by the researcher and examined in order to determine the relevant topics. Then related articles entered the research process independently of all cases. At first, 142 articles were selected and reviewed, 47 of which were repeated. Of the 95 papers reviewed, 22 articles were excluded due to non-compliance with the criteria of this review. Also, 23 articles were omitted from the study process because they did not explicitly refer to the concept of UPB. Finally, 50 papers were selected for analysis and review. Materials and Methods We use systematic review method with searching valid key words such as: Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior, detrimental citizenship behavior, Necessary Evils, Pro- Social Rule Breaking, Illegal corporate behavior, organizational misbehavior and etc. in these databases: Science Direct, ProQuestDiscovery, Ebrary, EbscoAll, Libgen, Springer, Emerald, Jstor, Wiley, Sage, Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Psychological Science and etc. Discussion and Results In order to conceptualizing unethical pro-organizational behaviour in this study, 50 articles that were conducted between years from 1958 to 2017 were investigated. An unethical pro-organizational behavior is a relatively new concept. Unethical pro-organizational behavior includes actions that are illegal or contrary to the values and norms of the community. Unethical pro-organizational behavior has a dual concept. In any case, considered to be unethical in terms of society, it may have a good purpose (for example, the benefit of an organization) and have a moral justification (Goal, justifies the means). This kind of behavior is the same as Arendt (1945) describes in his article: "Organized crime and Global Responsibility." In this paper, he analyzes why individuals act irresponsibly and limit their wide community to the benefit of their organization. Employees can set up a rigid framework without regard to the external environment (Peloza and Shang, 2011) and create a small moral world that is likely outside of the organization, the world cannot survive (Brief et al., 2000: 484). In this case, morality is a function of rationalism that is instrumental in helping the organization to achieve its goals (Bauman, 1991). Researcher's investigation of information sources suggests that unethical pro-organizational behavior with concepts such as Illegal corporate behavior (Baucus & Baucus, 1997), necessary evils (Molinsky and Margolis, 2005), organizational misbehavior (Vardi & Weitz, 2004), positive deviance (Warren, 2003) and pro-social rule-breaking (Morrison, 2006) have important differences, although they have somewhat similarities. Conclusion It can be discussed that if the behavior has any of the following characteristics, it is excluded from the involvement of unethical pro-organizational behavior and cannot be considered as this Type of behavior: v Included in job descriptions; v Include ethical actions; v Also done in an involuntary manner; v To benefit community; v In line with the norms of society; v Self-interest; v Damage to the organization; v Roots in the theory of reasoned conduct and the theory of social information processing; v Violate the rules and norms of the organization; v Harm to the interests of shareholders. In fact, it can be argued that behaviors that occur in the organization, if they include the following characteristics, that is, include all of the features mentioned at the same time, are categorized as unethical pro-organizational behavior. These features include (Barnt (2017), Tsiwa (2016), Chen et al (2016), Levin and Schweitzer (2015 and 2014), Gino, Ayal and Aryli (2013), Palmer (2012), Umphress and Bingham (2011), Umphress et al. (2010), Gino and Pierce (2009), Scott (2003), Donaldson and Dunfee (1994), Jones (1991)): v Violate core societal values, mores and laws; v Violate standards of proper conduct and ethics; v Voluntary and self-conscious; v To the benefit of the organization or its members, not the self; v Achieving the goal is essential; v It is not mandatory to violate the norms within the organization; v Not included in job descriptions; v Rooted in the theory of social exchange. The main concept of unethical pro-organizational behaviors is that these behaviors must necessarily violate the norms, rules, or standards of proper and ethical conduct (Umphress and Bingham, 2011). That is, if behavior is in line with norms, laws, or standards of behavior of the community, they will be excluded from the scope of these behaviors. Unethical pro-organizational behaviors must be done deliberately and voluntarily, and its purpose must necessarily be to benefit the organization, the staff of the organization, or both, and this goal should occur during this behavior. This behavioral phenomenon is rooted in social exchange theory and is not included in the person's job description, meaning that the organization or its directors do not formally and explicitly issue any instructions to employees to do so. Finally, it is not necessary to violate the norms of the organization in order to behavior classified as an unethical pro-organizational behavior.

One of the most challenging issues in corporate governance is the reduction of managers’ agency costs in state-owned companies. The purpose of this study is to find out if the three board’s incentives (financial services compensation, the board’s dependency on the CEO and the board’s dependency on the government) play a moderating role in the relation between the board's intellectual capital and performance of the board’s roles (strategic, control, providing resources and services) in state-owned enterprises. To collect data, 127 state-owned companies were selected and questionnaires, together with structural equation modeling (SEM), were applied. Findings show that the board's intellectual capital has a significant and positive impact on the performance of the board’s roles. Furthermore, financial service compensation has not moderated the impact of the board members’ intellectual capital on performance of their roles. On the other hand, the findings of this study show that the level of the board’s dependency on the CEO has moderated the impact of the board's intellectual capital on strategic role performance in a positive and significant way. Also, results confirm that the level of the board’s dependency on government has negatively moderated the impact of their intellectual capital on the control role performance.

Background and purpose: Destruction of insulin-producing beta cells by T cells causes type-1 diabetes (T1D). Carbenoxolone has cytoprotective and anti-inflammatory effects, and has been shown to be capable of suppressing Th17 cells that are effectively involved in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes, therefore, we studied the effect of Carbenoxolone on T1D in C57BL/6 mice. Materials and methods: Forty male C57BL/6 inbred strain mice were randomly divided into four groups and in three groups diabetes was induced by streptozotocin. A positive control group was considered and two other groups received 50 mg/kg/day i.p. carbenoxolone (7 and 5 doses). Then, on days 7 and 14 after the disease induction, fasting blood sugar (FBS) level, anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α, and pathological changes of the pancreas were studied during the course of the disease. Results: Carbenoxolone increased the levels of IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, and FBS. Also, it significantly increased infiltration of inflammatory cells into the pancreatic islets (P

Background. Brands are the most important source of emotional attachment with the consumer, it should be used as a vital tool for attracting and retaining customers of the organization and various sports organizations, should follow the theoretical principles related to brand management and brand loyalty and move towards strategic brand management as a superior marketing philosophy. Objectives. The purpose of this research was to position the Sport Sciences Research Institution of Iran using the Perceptual Mapping Technique. Methods. Competitive characteristics and strategic rivals of the Sport Sciences Research Institution were obtained from Rasooli Research (2013). Competitive characteristics and competitors were then prioritized using a researcher-made questionnaire and hierarchical method. The statistical population of this research consisted of the academic staff of the country including faculty members and graduate students. Analytic hierarchy analysis was used to prioritize the research variables. Results. Based on the obtained results, perceptual maps of the brand position of the research Center were depicted. The results showed that the position of brand of Sport Sciences Research Institution among academic researchers of the country in terms of research services, facilities and products was higher than other competitors while the field of educational services after physical education faculties was in the second place; and effort should be made in this area to promote their brand. Conclusion. In the competitive and turbulent environment of today, the role of brand as consumers' decision-making guide is becoming more important. Branding should therefore be considered as a continuous activity in all modes.

Type 1 diabetes (T1D), a spontaneous autoimmune disease, is associated with destruction of insulin-producing β-cells in the pancreas. Since some heat shock proteins (HSP), such as HSP70 exert a protective effect in both tissues and cells, the present study was conducted to elucidate the effects of carbenoxolone (CBX) as an HSP70 inducer on T1D. The disease was induced in male C57BL/6 mice using streptozotocin (STZ) and subjects were allocated to therapeutic 1 and therapeutic 2 groups, as well as negative and positive control groups. The treated mice (therapeutic 1 and therapeutic 2 groups) received 50 mg/kg CBX intraperitoneally every 24 hours, in the therapeutic 1 group the drug was injected before and after disease induction whereas in the therapeutic 2 group the drug was injected only after disease induction. Serum fasting blood sugar (FBS) level, cytokines production (Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), Interleukin 10 (IL-10), and IL-17), serum HSP70 level and CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cell (Treg) frequency measurements were outperformed 14 days after the last STZ injection. Our results showed that in the treated groups, serum HSP70, IFN-γ, and IL-17 levels were increased in contrast to the untreated groups. The IL-10 level was markedly decreased in comparison to untreated diabetic mice (p0.05). Our results confirm that CBX might through HSP70 induction, followed by increasing IFN-γ level leads to suppression of IL-10 production in diabetic mice resulted in toxic effects on pancreatic islet beta cells and deteriorating of disease.

Introduction: Homogenization of animal tissues with cold Perchloric Acid (PCA) produces two fractions of glycogen, Acid Soluble Glycogen (ASG) and Acid Insoluble Glycogen (AIG). Aim: To determine some physicochemical characteristics of muscle glycogen fractions in two groups of rat. Materials and Methods: An experimental study was conducted on two groups of five male rats. Rats in control group were kept at rest and in case group on 30 minutes physical activity. The content of carbohydrate, protein, phosphate, index and relative Molecular Weights (MWs) were determined for glycogen fractions. Results: Total glycogen decreased following muscular activity (1.40±0.08, mg/g wet muscle vs. 0.97±0.11, p

Introduction: There are several methods to extract and measure glycogen in animal tissues. Glycogen is extracted with or without homogenization by using cold Perchloric Acid (PCA). Aim: Three procedures were compared to determine glycogen fractions in rat liver at different physiological states. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted on two groups of rats, one group of five rats were fed standard rodent laboratory food and were marked as controls, and another five rats were starved overnight (15 hour) as cases. The glycogen fractions were extracted and measured by using three methods: classical homogenization, total-glycogenfractionation and homogenization-free protocols. Results: The data of homogenization methods showed that following 15 hour starvation, total glycogen decreased (36.4±1.9 vs. 27.7±2.5, p=0.01) and the change occurred entirely in Acid Soluble Glycogen (ASG) (32.0±1.1 vs. 22.7±2.5, p=0.01), while Acid Insoluble Glycogen (AIG) did not change significantly (4.9±0.9 vs. 4.6±0.3, p=0.7). Similar results were achieved by using the method of total-glycogen-fractionation. Homogenization-free procedure indicated that ASG and AIG fractions compromise about 2/3 and 1/3 of total glycogen and the changes occurred in both ASG (24.4±2.6 vs. 16.7±0.4, p

Introduction: The level of plasma triglyceride is balanced by the rate of secretion into and clearance from the plasma. Tyloxapol (Triton WR1339) is a nonionic detergent that inhibits lipoprotein lipase and hence clearance of triglyceride from the plasma. Aim: To determine the kinetic of plasma lipids and lipoproteins following injection of tyloxapol over a period of two weeks. Materials and Methods: Fifteen male rats were starved overnight and injected intravenously with tyloxapol (400mg/kg). Blood samples were taken in three steps as, the early (1-6 hours), the middle (1-2 days) and the third (3-9 days) phase. Plasma total cholesterol and triglyceride were measured by enzymatic methods and total phospholipids were analysed as molybdenum blue. Serum lipoproteins were fractionated by electrophoresis on agarose gel (Sebia Inc). Results: The changes of plasma lipids following tyloxapol injection showed three distinctive phases. The early phase lasts at least 6 hours, and the concentrations of triglyceride, total cholesterol and phospholipids increased linearly. The rate of triglyceride secretion was 259.7 + 8.1 mg/h.dl in this phase, which was comparable to the mean rate of 250.6 + 37.0 mg/h.dl or 102.8 + 15.2 mg/h.kg body in starved male rat. During the next 48 hour the lipids continued to accumulate but at a lower rate, and the levels of triglyceride, cholesterol and total phospholipids rose up to about 3200, 586 and 715 mg/dl respectively. In the last phase, the levels of plasma lipids decreased toward the basal levels after 5 days. In serum lipoprotein electrophoresis, the VLDL and LDL increased and HDL fraction disappeared simultaneously during the initial 2 hours of tyloxapol injection. The VLDL fell down toward the normal range, preceded to the reappearance of HDL during 5 days. Conclusion: A single intravenous injection of tyloxapol shows three distinctive phases. In the early phase, triglyceride accumulates linearly and the rate of its increment in plasma is a good estimate of the rate of VLDL secretion from the liver.

Introduction: Uric acid has antioxidant activity and it is expected to protect against coronary artery disease (CAD). Contradictory, it is a component of metabolic syndrome and so a risk factor for CAD. The associations of plasma total antioxidant capacity (TAOC) and uric acid (UA) as well as other risk factors were investigated relative to the occurrence and severity of CAD. Materials and Methods: The study population consisted of 148 males and 152 females aged 35-76 years who were classified as CAD cases and controls according to the results of coronary angiography. The severity of CAD was scored on the basis of the number and the extent of lesions at coronary arteries. The concentrations of UA and TAOC were measured by using of FRAP and enzymatic uricase methods. Results: The prevalence of hypertension, cigarette smoking and diabetes mellitus was more frequent in CAD cases than controls. Patients with CAD when compared with the controls had increased levels of glucose, triglycerides, creatinine, UA, TAOC and decreased levels of HDL- cholesterol. Serum UA was high positive correlate of serum total and LDL-cholesterol, triglyceride, creatinine, BUN, bilirubin, TAOC and negative correlate of glucose and HDL-C. TAOC and its major determinant UA but not bilirubin and albumin are significantly associated with the prevalence and severity of CAD. In multivariate analysis and in the absence of hypertension, UA but not TAOC would remain and be associated with CAD by the OR of 1.57 (1.07- 2.29), p=0.02. If the results adjusted for all major risk factors including hypertension, neither TAOC nor UA would remain in the regression equation. Conclusion: The results suggest that TAOC and UA but not bilirubin and albumin are associated with CAD significantly. But, the correlation is not independent and is attributed to the metabolic syndrome. The measurement of UA and TAOC will not improve the prognostic power beyond the classical risk factors.

Background: It is hypothesized that the impacts of life events accumulate and can trigger and promote atherosclerosis in susceptible individuals. In the current study, the correlation of total life stressors during 1 year was investigated relative to coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods: The study population consisted of 148 males and 152 females aged 35-76 years. The subjects were classified as CAD cases and controls according to the results of coronary angiography. The severity of CAD was scored on the basis of the number and the extent of lesions at coronary arteries. The stressful events of life were assessed using Holmes-Rahe Questionnaire and was presented as total psychological stress scores per year (TPSS). Results: The frequency of cigarette smoking, diabetes mellitus, and hypertension was more prevalent in CAD cases than control subjects. The levels of TPSS were increased in patients with CAD compared to the controls (160.3 ± 71.3 vs. 139.8 ± 66.5, P = 0.020). TPSS was also associated positively with the levels of uric acid, erythrocytes counts, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, aspirin consumption, and negatively with high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol and apo-AI. In logistic regression analysis, TPSS correlated with the occurrence of CAD by the odds ratio of 1.773 (1.073-2.930), P = 0.025, but the association was weakened after adjustment for classical risk factors, especially hypertension. TPSS exhibited significant association with the severity of CAD [F (3,274) = 2.6, P = 0.051]. Conclusions: The results suggest that TPSS are associated with the occurrence and severity of CAD significantly, but the association is not independent.