Educational interests and needs of owner-managers of small building firms

This thesis discusses a critical investigation into the educational needs and interests of owner-managers of small firms. The investigation attempted to determine, from the viewpoint of the small business owner-managers, those critical factors which affected and influenced their interest in and appreciation of education and training, as well as identifying areas of interest for future training. A survey was taken of a small sectoral sample of 58 building firms within the Central Belt of Scotland, 20 of whose owner-managers were assessed in detail using the Repertory Grid and Personal Project techniques. The results of the study indicated a general lack of interests in education and training among the small business owner-managers sampled. These lack of interests were influenced by seven major factors; owner-managers evaluation of education and training, their attitudes towards education and educational establishments, personality characteristics, limitation of resources, lack of formal education, lack of awareness of educational provisions and the characteristics of training proOvider. Other important factors influencing training were the timing of courses, the identity and reputation of training personnel and the course format. In terms of areas for future training, the ten most important areas were identified by the owner-managers. These were, in ranked order of interest; Production Planning and Control, Site Organisation, Employee Supervision, Cost Control, Business Planning, Working Capital Management, Health and Safety, Quality Control, Estimating and Costing and Financial Planning

LEADERSHIP: HOW TO BE AN EFFECTIVE MANAGER

The purpose of this paper is to examine effective managers Malaysian leadership. The objective was investigated on how mangers can have better understanding of leadership and to use it to their advantage. In addition, this paper also examined to what extant Malaysian leadership ‘managers reflect the level of their social interaction, preference for gathering data, preference for decision-making, and style of making decisions. Finally, it identified several ways on how effective managers could reduce the gap between the difference in their leader to capitalize the strength of their counterparts in order to enhance organization performance and at the same time grasp new ideas so that it could benefit both sides. This study attempted to find out the effect of functional and behavioral competences on the leadership effectiveness in relation to managers in the construction industry in the Penang and Butterworth states in Malaysia. The finding has shown that all managers surveyed basically agreed that IT knowledge and the business knowledge are the most crucial competences that should be acquired to become an effective manager in the construction industry. On the other hand intraprofessional knowledge of behavioural competences was found to be the most important for an effective manager..Leadership, An effective manager, Construction industry, Malaysia.

Using Pomegranate Peel Extract to Change the Adverse Effect of Ethephon by Enhancing its Antioxidant, Anti-inflammatory, and Anti-apoptotic Effects in Rats

المبيد الحشري الفسفوري العضوي ومنظم للنمو المسمى بالإيثيفون (2- كلورو إيثيل حامض الفوسفونيك) يستخدم على نطاق واسع كمسرع لعملية النضج ومثبط لمدة الزراعة. تم مؤخرًا أخذ مستخلص قشر الرمان (PPE) في الاعتبار نظرًا لتأثيراته الدوائية خاصة تلك المرتبطة بأمراض الكلى. وبالتالي ، كان الهدف من هذه الدراسة هو فحص في التأثير الوقائي المحتمل لمستخلص قشر الرمان ضد السمية الكلوية التي يسببها الإيثيفون في الجرذان. في هذه الدراسة, تم إنشاء أربع مجموعات من ذكور الجرذان البالغة (ن = 15) ، مجموعة التحكم ، مستخلص قشر الرمان 400 ملغم / كغم ، الإيثيفون 250 ملغم / كغم ، مستخلص قشر الرمان + الإيثيفون بنفس جرعة مجموعة مستخلص قشر الرمان ومجموعة الإيثيفون. معلمات وظائف الكلى: KLM-1 والكرياتينين واليوريا ؛ علامات الإجهاد التأكسدي: الهيم أوكسيجينيز -1 (HO-1) والعامل النووي 2 المرتبط بالعامل 2 (Nrf2) ؛ الجلوتاثيون (GSH) مع الإنزيمات المرتبطة به: أكسيد النيتريك (NO) ، ديسميوتيز الفائق (SOD) ، malondialdehyde (MDA) و catalase (CAT). بالإضافة إلى ذلك ، تم فحص وسطاء الالتهاب الكلوي: إنترلوكين 1 بيتا (IL-1β) ، عامل نخر الورم ألفا (TNF-α) ، العامل النووي كابا ب (NF-κB). كما تم دراسة المؤشرات الحيوية لموت الخلايا (Bax، caspase 3، Bcl2) بالإضافة إلى فحص البيانات المرضية لأنسجة الكلى. أظهرت النتائج أن الإيثيفون أدى إلى زيادة معنوية في علامات الأكسدة ، وانخفاض في مستويات مضادات الأكسدة، مصحوبًا بإصابة الأنسجة الكلوية المؤكسدة. وبالتالي ، تم االاستنتاج أن إعطاء الإيثيفون يؤدي إلى إفراز العوامل المؤيدة للالتهابات. علاوة على ذلك ، أظهرت النتائج النسيجية المرضية وجود تشوهات في أنسجة الكلى تعزى إلى التعرض للإيثيفون. ومن المثير للاهتمام ، أن اعطاء مستخلص قشر الرمان مع الإيثيفون أدت إلى تحسين كبير في التغيرات الكيميائية الحيوية والنسيجية الناتجة عن الإيثيفون. تقترح النتائج الحالية التأثير المحتمل لمستخلص قشر الرمان في حماية الأنسجة الكلوية من السمية الكلوية التي يسببها الإيثيفون في الجرذان.Organophosphorus insecticide and growth regulator namely Ethephon (2-chloroethylphosphonic acid) are widely used as a ripening process accelerator and a cultivation duration inhibitor. Pomegranate extract (PPE) has recently been taken into consideration due to its pharmacological effects especially those associated with renal diseases. Thus, this study aims to investigate the possible protective effect of PPE against ethephon-induced nephrotoxicity in rats. In this study four groups of adult male rats were divided into control group, PPE 400 mg/kg group, Ethephon 250 mg/kg group, and finally, PPE + Ethephon group (treated with the same dose of PPE group and Ethephon group). In the current study, kidney function parameters (KIM-1, creatinine, and urea) along with oxidative stress markers, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2 (Nrf2), glutathione (GSH) and its correlated enzymes, nitric oxide (NO), superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA) and catalase (CAT) were estimated. Additionally, mediators of renal inflammation: interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) were measured. Apoptotic biomarkers (Bax, caspase 3, and Bcl2) in addition to renal histopathological data were also investigated. Results revealed that Ethephon elicited a significant increase in oxidation markers and reduced antioxidant levels, accompanied by oxidative renal tissue injury. Consequently, administration of Ethephon was reported to provoke secretion of the pro-inflammatory mediators. Moreover, histopathological results showed that deformities in the renal tissues were noticed which is attributed to Ethephon exposure. Interestingly, co-administration of PPE and Ethephon resulted in significantly ameliorated the biochemical and histopathological alterations produced by Ethephon. Current results propose the potential effect of PPE in the protection of renal tissue from Ethephon induced nephrotoxicity in rats

Optimization of the Feldspar Usage in High Temperature Drilling Fluid

This report basically discusses the overall element of the project which is entitled, Optimization of the Feldspar Usage in High Temperature Drilling Fluid. This research will be a stepping stone for future research of the new potential drilling fluid additives which is obtained from abundant local resources. The objectives of the project are to discover the properties and characteristics of quartzo-feldspathic rock, to discover the effect of feldspar addition on the drilling fluid properties and to determine the effect of formulated drilling fluid in high temperature and high pressure well condition. In order to correlate cost and effectiveness of the additive, the natural sources of additive (feldspar) which found abundant in Malaysia is determined its potential. In drilling process, drilling fluid could alter in situ formation. In the operation main problem with drilling fluids and additives are concerned on the effect of the drilling fluid log interpretation and on cuttings analysis. Minimizing the environmental impact of a drilling operation as well as safety considerations both directly affect the choice of drilling fluid additives and drilling fluid systems. The methodology of the project is kept with relevancy of current technology. The rock properties identification are using SEM and XRD. Meanwhile, the drilling fluid properties are identified using viscometer, HPHT viscometer and HPHT filter press. The project met its objective, and as a result, feldspar could be used as a loss circulation material additive as it shows a good result in filtration test

Design and implementation of a secured SDN system based on hybrid encrypted algorithms

Software defined network suggests centralizing network knowledge in one network portion by separating the routing (control plane) mechanism from the transmission network packet operation (data plane). The control plane is composed of one, two or more controllers which are considered as software-defined networking (SDN) network brain where the real intelligence is incorporated. The process of separating the control unit from the data unit led to a problem related to poor security of data sent in the network, so solutions to these problems had to be found. In this paper, address this problem by implementing robust algorithms to encrypt information, based on advanced encryption standard (AES), Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA), and hybrid encryption algorithms to guarantee data protection and authenticity. The results showed that the hybrid coding method is better in terms of security and improved time (faster than RSA alone) by applying several scenarios in the SDN network to a set of encrypted files

Fuguai Mapping: The Useful Method For Problem Solving

Fuguai in Japanese word also called abnormality. The abnormality is unneeded thing which located at the wrong places or situations. In most conditions, the abnormality affected physical, functional and safety problems especially for machines. This paper discusses the application of Fuguai Mapping in order to identify the abnormality at grinding machine as a preventive action to sustain the machine condition. Through the study, it shows that many abnormalities were found. As a result, most of the abnormalities at machine were reduced and had improved the machine efficiency

An Efficient Model for Data Classification Based on SVM Grid Parameter Optimization and PSO Feature Weight Selection

The support vector machine (SVM) is a classifier with different applications due to its perfect experimental performance compared to other machine learning algorithms. It has been used mostly in pattern recognition, fault diagnosis, and text categorization. The performance of SVM is extremely dependent on the sufficient setting of its parameters such as SVM max-iteration and SVM kernel-type. Therefore, the choice of suitable initial parameters of SVM will result in a good performance and classification result. This paper introduces a new schema for optimizing SVM parameters using grid search and particle swarm optimization PSO feature weighting. The experimental results demonstrate that the new method obtained a high accuracy compared to the traditional SVM and other SVM-optimization methods