Factors Affecting Construction Speed of Industrialized Building System in Malaysia

Malaysia is presently taking a serious look at IBS as an answer to the housing shortage problem. There are many advantages using the IBS according to a report published by the Malaysian Ministry for Local Government and Housing. The main advantages are the speed of construction, quality and price. All of these are required to meet the large demand for housing. This thesis presents the speed of construction methods which are the conventional system, cast-in-situ method, composite methods, and the Industrialized Building System; including the factors that affect the speed of IBS and the factors causing delay in building construction projects.The data were collected through mailing questionnaires distribution. The questionnaire took into consideration the factors on sample size, time, speed and causes of delay. The questionnaire was distributed to four hundred and fifty respondents among developers, government boards, main contractors, consultants and manufactures who were concerned with the building systems of construction projects in Malaysia. The return was seventy eight respondents. The statistical descriptive analysis was used to identify whether the respondents have the necessary sufficient qualification to respond correctly to the questionnaire. However, spearman correlation analysis was used to find out the significant scenario of the construction method. The Logit linear analysis was used to choose between the IBS and the conventional methods. In addition, it is used to test these hypotheses since it is a useful mean of both summarizing the results of data analysis and comparing the effects of different speed factors on the probability to choose the construction method. The results have been analyzed to rank the factors affecting the speed of IBS and the factors causing the delay of building construction projects. As a result from the analysis, it was observed that the full-prefabricated method was the fastest construction method compared to the other methods. Moreover, the high productivity of structural elements (in-situ or off-situ) is the most important factor that had an effect on the speed of IBS. The study also revealed many factors causing delay in building construction projects in Malaysia. These factors could be financial from both the contractors and the owners' side. Poor management is also an important factor causing delay. However, a ver) important factor for the delay could be from the consultant's side where the supervision is conducted at a very late stage during the execution of the projeci and the incompetence in giving timely instructions. Finally, the most importan' external factor causing delay is the lack of materials in the market. The result of the study is that there should be continuous improvement of the IBS which focus mainly on innovating techniques to improve the productivity The financial support as well as technical support is very necessary and urgent for building construction projects

Social Studies Teaching In Oman : Teachers' Concerns And Levels Of Use In The Adoption Of Student-Centered Teaching Approach [LB1584.A2 A266 2007 f rb].

Kajian ini adalah untuk menyelidik keperihatinan dan tahap Penggunaan guru-guru Pengajian Sosial dalam pengambilan dan pengamalan pendekatan pengajaran berpusatkan pelajar (S-CTA) dalam pengajaran dan pembelajaran Pengajian Sosial di sekolah sistem Pendidikan Asas di Oman. The purpose of this study was to investigate Social Studies teachers' concerns and their Levels of Use in the adoption of student-centered teaching approach in Social Studies teaching and learning at the Basic Education schools in Oman

E-government adoption success factors for developing countries

Adoption has a key role in a successful implementation of E-government initiatives in the context of developing nations. Until the current times, little research has been done to explore determinant factors of the adoption of E-government services among developing countries citizens. It is pertinent to determine the factors influencing the e-government services adoption and the government should understand such factors. Therefore, for an E-government to reach its full potential there is a need to decrease the gap between what is offered and what is utilized for fruitful government investment. So, this paper reviewed the studies of E-government adoption in developing countries. The aim of this study is to come up with the important success factors that influence the citizens in developing countries. There are many studies mentioned that privacy, security, trust, awareness is very important factors that affect E-government in developing countries

Pneumothorax or Skin Fold? Mind the Gap

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From abundance to scarcity: exploring narratives and locked-in institutions around desalination in Bahrain

While most literature on desalination focuses on how a specific technical or managerial concern is addressed, desalination, in its relatively long history in Bahrain, has emerged periodically under different guises and forms. The topic of the changing motivations to desalinate has yet to be analysed. Thus, it is beneficial to understand the changing context and justifications that accompanied the various milestones of desalination adoption; emergence, expansion and dominance. Over four decades, the desalination journey in Bahrain has coincided with the formation of the modern Bahraini state. Not only has desalination dominated hydro-politics, but it has also become the primary source of municipal water, side-lining other water resource management options. I argue that changing state-building policies, scarcity discourse and politics of reforms in the water sector have influenced the position of desalination. Therefore, contextual analysis along development trajectories is central to understanding the position of desalination in Bahrain. To substantiate this argument, firstly, I situate the research context within the historical development of water and food policies, noting their influence and fluctuation. Specifically, I trace how the general perception around water and resources has shifted from one of abundance to scarcity to advance the interest of particular stakeholder groups and to meet changing national priorities. Since independence, state-building politics, in Bahrain, has influenced the development trajectories of how water and food are perceived and provided. Secondly, despite the water-rich history of Bahrain, there appears a hegemonic discourse of scarcity that has influenced how water policies are shaped. The current limitations of conventional water resources and climate change are presented as signifiers of water scarcity. In part, to legitimise an expansion in desalination, as well as to disengage the Government from any failings in their responsibilities. As such, the mobilisation of desalination in Bahrain denotes a political-fix, primarily to facilitate the evolution of a sanctioned discourse and maintain the Government’s political and economic vision. Finally, this thesis examines the politics of water reforms that have emerged in the last two decades. While the reforms came about to address the spiral of commitments to the path of desalination, the entrenched position of desalination showed little flexibility to change. The dynamics of lock-in were evident in the rejection of the dominance of desalination, on the one hand, and the counter-reaction to the rejection, on the other. As such, viable alternatives were locked-out while the desal-dependent path was maintained. These alternatives represented institutional and demand management options such as infrastructure repairs, an improved water tariff structure, water bylaws and others that were viewed at a disadvantage when compared to the desalination promise. Hence, drawing on development studies, hydro politics and political economy scholarship, this thesis extends our understanding on the dynamics of the large-scale expansion of desalination schemes. Whilst the role of the water scarcity narrative to chart fixed pathways to large-scale hydro-infrastructure is essential in influencing politics of development, path-dependency processes are equally visible, enmeshed in hydro-politics to further favour the desal option. These outlined drivers of influential state-building politics, a totalising discourse of water scarcity, and path-dependency processes provide a unique explanation for the current overreliance on desalination in Bahrain

E-Training & Employees’ Performance a Practical Study on the Ministry of Education in the Kingdom of Bahrain

The research examines the impact of e-training on employees’ performance in the ministry of Education in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Efficient operation of business, relies heavily on high-quality employee performance, which in turn, requires competent training. To remain competitive and comply with the emerging labor market infrastructure, organizations are taking advantage of the evolved online technologies to train employees faster, and in a more effective way. Therefore, one of the researchers as being working in the ministry of education throughout a number of years, has indicated that there is a problem in terms of the readiness of the ministry of education to act upon e-training.The research adopts the analytical descriptive approach, utilizing a questionnaire to identify the impact of e-training on employees’ performance. The selected sample consists of 194 employees working at the Ministry of Education. The research concludes that there is a positive and significant relationship between e-training and employees’ performance as the value of the correlation coefficient was 0.358 while the simple regression coefficient reveals that the efficiency of the e-training influences the job performance by 25.3%. The results also indicates that there are statistical differences in terms of demographic variables such as (qualification, and job experience). Keywords: E-training, technological infrastructure, efficiencies, e-training methods, employees’ performance

Durability of cantilever inlay-retained fixed dental prosthesis fabricated from multilayered zirconia ceramics with different designs.

PURPOSE The purpose of this in-vitro study was to investigate the effect of framework design on fracture resistance and failure modes of cantilever inlay-retained fixed partial dentures (IRFDPs) fabricated from two multilayered monolithic zirconia materials. MATERIALS AND METHODS Seventy-two natural premolar teeth were prepared as abutments for cantilever IRFDPs using three designs: mesial-occlusal (MO) inlay with short buccal and palatal wings (D1), MO inlay with long palatal wing (D2), MO inlay with long palatal wing and occlusal extension (D3). Full-contoured IRFDPs were fabricated from two monolithic zirconia materials; IPS e.max ZirCAD Prime and Zolid Gen-X. Adhesive surfaces were air-abraded and bonded with MDP-containing resin cement. Specimens were subjected to thermocycling (5-55 °C, 5000 cycles); then, mechanical loading (1.2 × 10⁶ cycles, 49 N). Surviving specimens were loaded until failure in the universal testing machine. All specimens were examined under stereomicroscope, and two samples from each group were evaluated using Scanning Electron Microscope. RESULTS Mean failure loads were not significantly different between different framework designs or between two materials. However, IPS e.max ZirCAD Prime showed significantly higher failure rate than Zolid Gen-X during dynamic fatigue (p = 0.009). Samples with D1 design showed higher debonding rate, D2 failed mainly by fracture of the palatal wing and debonding, and D3 failed mainly by fracture of the abutment tooth. Debonded restorations showed mainly mixed failures. CONCLUSION Cantilever IRFDPs with framework designs that maximize adhesion to enamel exhibited promising results. IPS e.max ZirCAD Prime was more susceptible to fractures with the long palatal wing design