Organizational Culture: Creating, Changing, Measuring and Consolidating for Performance

The Culture of an organization starts with the leadership of the organization. The culture of an organization is seen as a DNA that is not visible to the eye, but a very powerful tool that shapes what happens in an organization. Therefore, organizational culture is the personality of the organization. The main thrust of this paper examines how an organization can create, change and strengthen culture as it affects her performance. Furthermore, it examines how organizational culture dynamically creates structures and frameworks for the operations of an organization. This paper further suggests that it is central to comprehend the environmental setting of an organization in order to delineate the cultural standards, values and beliefs to implement. Employees with beliefs and values that are compatible with the organizations’ culture must be recruited from the inception of an organization operation and throughout her life span. Organizations must inspire socialization and incorporation of individual employees’ goals with the organizations’ goals and objectives to sustain her culture. An organization’s Management should implement the development of interconnecting culture through the use of unambiguous statements of single-mindedness, core values and cultural standards. Actively, top management should appraise various cultural elements, as this will help to manage and take necessary actions in strengthening culture

Predicting Performance through the Elements of Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is shaped by the leaders and by the purpose for which the organization exist. There are many cultures and subHcultures, which may be of different strengths and which may have different levels of influence. The main aim of this paper was to determine what elements of organizational culture predict the performance of an organization. The objectives of the study were to determine if the different elements of organizational culture has significant contribution on the performances of Universities and to reveal which of the different elements of organizational culture has the most significant contribution in predicting the performances of Universities. To determine what elements of organizational culture predict the performance of an organization, a sample of 100 staff (academic and nonHacademic)each of Covenant University, Ota, Olabisi Onabanjo University, AgoHIwoye, University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, all in Ogun State were drawn. Data was collected with the use of a Likert type questionnaire and were analyzed using multiple regressions with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The finding shows that Quality Consciousness, Role Clarity, Employee Concern, Customer Care and Code of Conduct made the most significant contribution in predicting performances of organizations. Conclusively, there is no such thing as a ‘right’ or ‘best’ culture for all organizations. The most appropriate culture for an organization is the one that best helps it cope with the exigencies of its business environment. The most appropriate culture for an organization is the one that best helps it cope with the exigencies of its business environment

A SECURED EMBEDDED SCHEME BASED ON MULTI-CRYPTOGRAPHIC PROTOCOLS

Transmission of information via unsecured channel requires confidentiality, authorization and authentication as part of major factors that must be put into consideration. This work proposes a scheme that can take care of these major factors at once. The method involves a multi-level approach that comprises of a key exchange protocol, a message authentication code, a key derivation function and a symmetric encryption known as polyalphabetic substitution that makes use of a 94x94 Vigenere table. The four cryptographic techniques are combined to form an encryption protocol, coined MLES for a message to be securely transmitted. In order to test the functionality of MLES scheme, it was implemented using Java 1.8.0 and tested on a text data. The result shows a feasible protocol that can secure a message in steganography

Analysis of Physical and Chemical Composition of Sweet Orange (Citrus sinensis) Peels

Sweet orange is one of the most common fruits in the World. The waste generated from the fruits needs to be put into a beneficial use. In this study some physical and chemical properties of the primary waste of sweet orange was investigated. The result showed sweet orange rinds (peels) as the major waste and contains 45-50% of the total mass of sweet orange fruits. The chemical analysis showed sweet orange rinds to be rich in protein of 7.15% and crude fibre of 12.79% which can be used as ingredients in processed food. These uses will promote sustainable disposal of orange rinds

Heat and Mass Transfer for Soret and Dufour’s Effect on Mixed Convection Boundary Layer Flow over a Stretching Vertical Surface in a Porous Medium Filled with a Viscoelastic Fluid in the Presence of Magnetic field

Thermal-diffusion and diffusion-thermo effects on combined heat and mass transfer on mixed convection boundary layer flow over a stretching vertical surface in a porous medium filled with a viscoelastic fluid in the presence of magnetic field is investigated. The partial differential equations governing the problem have been transformed by a similarity transformation into a system of ordinary differential equations which are solved numerically by using the shooting method with sixth-order of Runge-Kutta technique which are compared with Homotopy Adomian’s Decomposition Method (HAM) for special case when magnetic field parameter is zero For fluids of medium molecular weight (H2, air), profiles of the dimensionless velocity, temperature and concentration distributions are shown graphically for various values of parameters embedded in the flow model. Finally, numerical values of physical quantities, such as the local skin friction coefficient, the local Nusselt number and the local Sherwood number are presented in tabular form

Voltammetric and impedance studies of phenols and Its derivatives at carbon nanotubes/Prussian bluefilms platinum modified electrode

The electrochemical oxidation of phenol (Ph), 4-chlorophenol (4-ClPh) and 4-nitrophenol (4-NPh) at a platinum electrode modified with and without multi-walled carbon nanotubes/Prussian blue nanocomposite in a pH 7.0 phosphate buffer electrolyte was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and impedance measurements. The modified electrodes were characterised using techniques such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), electron X-ray dispersive spectroscopy (XRD), cyclic voltammetry (CVs) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)..

Development of a Densification Equipment for Organic Biomass Solid Fuel Pellets

In South Western Nigeria, after the harvesting of maize cobs from the field, large amount of maize stock remains as agricultural residues and wastes. The maize stock constitutes a menace to the environment if not property handled. In this study, densification equipment was designed, fabricated and tested using maize stock grind as raw material. The equipment consists of mixer/ moisture conditioner and a pelleting machine. The power rating for the mixer/moisture conditioner is 0.069 kW with an input capacity of 81 kg/h while the power consumption of the pellet machine is 0.8 kW with throughout capacity of 40 kg/h. The result of the test showed that the highest product temperature, which gives an indication of the quality and durability of the pellets produced was 930C at 0.8 mm hammer mill screen size, 10% moisture content and 150 rpm die speed, at this temperature the machine is operating at optimum efficiency of 74%. High product temperature is an important parameter during pelleting/briquetting operations because it gives the degree of compaction and binding of the pellets/briquettes. The densification equipment for organic biomass was developed using locally sourced materials as a means of converting agricultural wastes into pellets for domestic cooking and cottage industry uses

Electrocatalytic properties of prussian blue nanoparticles supported on poly(m-aminobenzenesulfonic acid)–functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes toward the detection of dopamine

Edged plane pyrolytic graphite electrode (EPPGE) was modified with and without Prussian blue (PB) nanoparticles and polyaminobenzene sulphonated single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTPABS) using the chemical deposition method. The electrodes were characterised using microscopy, spectroscopy and electrochemical techniques. Results showed that edged plane pyrolytic graphite-single-walled carbon nanotubes-prussian blue (EPPGE-SWCNT-PB) electrode gave the best dopamine (DA) current response which increases with increasing PB layers

How Effective is the Treatment of Locally Advanced and Metastatic Breast Cancer in Developing Centres?: A Retrospective Review

BACKGROUND: The use of chemotherapy in advanced metastatic breast cancer remains a subject of controversy. The thought of MicKinnon et al (early 1950s) that the course of breast cancer was unaffected by chemotherapy has been refuted by results of treatment in the developed countries. The poor result of treatment in developing centres still compares with prechemotherapy era. Consequently, The McKinnon’s thought may still lurk. We compared the survival of chemotherapy treated with chemotherapy untreated cancer of breast patients.METHOD: Records of breast cancer patients who presented and died between January 2010 and May  2014 were reviewed. The primary outcome was overall survival. Records of patients that received  chemotherapy with or without other tumor directed specific therapy were compared with records of patients who did not receive any tumor directed therapy.RESULT: Thirty-one patients received chemotherapy while 25 patients did not. All were females, more than 90% were of the patients had advanced or metastatic disease. Treatments were not biologically  directed and treatment plans were largely compromised and suboptimal. The overall mean survival was  19.2 ±9.2 months, and the median duration was 17.5 months(range 6-44months). The overall survival  was not statistically different between the two groups (p= 0.230, unequal variance assumed). The  objective of using neoadjuvant chemotherapy for fungating lesions was not achieved.CONCLUSION: In advanced and metastatic breast cancer, outcomes of patients who receive  suboptimal regimen of cytotoxic chemotherapy do not differ from chemotherapy untreated patients.KEYWORDS: breast cancer, suboptimal treatment, untreated, chemotherap

Characterization of a cellulolytic enzyme from wood degrading bacteria, Bacillus circulans

This report describes the purification and characterization of an enzyme that exhibits cellulase activity produced by the wood degrading bacteria, Bacillus circulans . The enzyme was purified by ion-exchange chromatography using CM-Sepharose CL-6B, and shown to exhibit hydrolytic activity on carboxymethylcellulose. The molecular weight of the purified enzyme was determined to be 43 KDa by means of SDS-PAGE. The kinetic parameters, and the effects of pH and temperature on the purified enzyme were determined. The enzyme was 4.37 fold and showed a specific activity of 29.13 \u3bcg of glucose produced/min/mg protein. The apparent Km value for the hydrolysis of carboxymethylcellulose was 1.061 \ub1 1.17 mg/ml with a Vmax of 13.75 \ub1 1.51 \u3bcg of glucose produced/ml/min. The enzyme showed an optimum pH value of 9.0 and the optimum temperature was 50 \u2103. Alkalophilicity and moderate thermostability of this enzyme are some of its essential characteristics that may make it suitable for industrial and biotechnological applications