Assessing resistance to technological change for improved job performance in the UAE (public sectors)

Globalization, restructuring and new technology developments in each and every sector has bought tremendous changes in all aspects of business and human lifestyles. One of the major changes that took place in business is change technology. Technology innovation or change has an important influence on organizational performance. There is a close relationship between technology change, human resource management and organizational performance. Change in technology has been identified to have both positive and negative effects on employees work performance and attitude. Thus the current study aims at developing a framework to identify the factors that may point to employees’ resistance to technological change within UAE public companies and to use the framework to identify opportunities for improvement in job performance. Objectives are to identify the factors, which call for technological change that lead to technological resistance, improvement in job performance, develop a framework for assessing employee resistance to technological change and identify opportunities for improvement, further validate framework using case studies in the UAE and finally propose valid recommendations for overcoming employee resistance to technological change in the UAE. Survey and semi structured interviews were conducted with HR managers in three UAE public sector companies. Survey responses were measured using a five point Likert scale. Reliability test and ANOVA analysis were carried out for analyzing the collected data.Results indicate technological development as major reason for change. Reward policy is given priority for indicators of job performance effectiveness this has led to improvement in the quality of work, accomplishing task, eliminate errors. Further major reasons for resistance to technological change from management perspective were found to be fear of overload, loss of power, increasing work load and from employee perspective need to learn and re-learn, lack of appropriate reward policies. Measures and opportunities for improvement to overcome resistance to change brought about by new technological implementations UAE public sector have taken major steps to work towards resistance to technology change. There is a need to study as to what extent employees and management are able to cope with new systems and conduct regular surveys and to- 5 -collect opinions from employees to know what they need in order to cope with the new technology. Further it is essential for employees and managers to make them selves comfortable in accepting change with the help of training and other knowledgeable source

Review of cloud computing in science, technology, and real life

This paper presents an overview of the general idea and history of cloud computing in theory. The objective of this review is to draw attention to preceding studies about cloud computing that have common characteristics with the theme of this paper. There were some points discussed in general, including the advantages of this technology, its subjects, security, and the effects of adopting cloud computing in an organization

An Analysis of Ibn-Khaldun’s Theory in light of Covid-19 Pandemic

This argumentative paper presents a new perspective on Ibn-khaldun’s theory of social change in light of Covid-19. It argues that when examining the theory, it can be found that it makes an association between social change and natural factors, such as epidemics and human factors, such as government changes. The target theory which is explored in this study is the cyclical theory of Ibn-khaldun. This study adopts the former theory in order to analyze the effects of Covid-19 on the Arab-Islamic society, and how this theory was able to predict many of the current events and possible future events using social and historical approaches. The paper consists of four parts as follows: First, an overview of Ibn-khaldun’s theory of social change and its philosophy is provided. Second, the role of human factors in social change according to Ibn-khaldun is explored. Third, natural factors affecting social change according to Ibn-khaldun are discussed. Finally, the impact of Covid-19 on our way of life in relation to Ibn-khaldun’s theory of social change is examined. Keywords: Ibn-khaldun, theory of social change, Covid-19, human factors, natural factors

Evaluation of performance-based earthquake engineering in Yemen

Building codes follow a common concept in designing buildings to achieve an acceptable seismic performance. The objective underlying the concept is to ensure that the buildings should be able to resist minor earthquake without damage, resist moderate earthquake with some non-structural damage, and resist major earthquakes without collapse, but some structural as well as non-structural damage. This study aims to evaluate the performance-based seismic to come up with necessary recommendations for both future practices, essential review, and restoration of existing structures in Yemen. To do this real case studies incorporated, and nonlinear pushover analysis is carried out. The analysis results presented and then assessed to find out the conformity with the required performance. The structural sections assumed at the beginning of the design, then the design repeated many times to achieve the selected performance criteria (the plastic hinge properties and the maximum displacement)

Prediction of thermal and energy transport of MHD Sutterby hybrid nanofluid flow with activation energy using Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH)

The present research work pursues GMDH for predicting thermal and energy transport of 2-D radiative magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of hybrid Sutterby nanofluid across a moving wedge with activation energy. An exclusive class of nanoparticles SWCNT-Fe(3)O(4 )and MWCNT-Fe3O4 are dispersed into the ethylene glycol as regular fluid. The hybrid nanofluid mathematical model has been written as a system of partial differential equations (PDEs), which are then converted into ordinary differential equations (ODEs) through similarity replacements. Numerical solutions are attained Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg's fourth fifth-order (RKF-45) scheme by adopting the shooting technique. The ranges of diverse sundry parameters used in our study are Hartree parameter 0.1 <= m <= 0.5, magnetic parameter 0.3 <= M <= 1, Deborah number 0.1 <= De <= 1, moving wedge parameter 0.3 <= gamma <= 0.9, Reynolds number 0 <= Re <= 2.5, solid volume fraction of Fe3O4 and CNTs0.005 <= phi(1) <= 0.1,0.005 <= phi(2) <= 0.06, Browanian motion 0.1 <= Nb <= 0.4, thermophoresis parameter 0.1 <= Nt <= 0.25, Eckeret number 0.05 <= Ec <= 1, radiation parameter 1 <= R-d <= 2.5, Lewis number 0.5 <= Le <= 1.5, chemical reaction rate 0.1 <= sigma <= 0.7, heat source parameter, 0 <= delta <= 1.5 and activation energy 1 <= E <= 4 which shows up during the speed, thermal, and focus for Fe3O4/C2H6O2 nanofluid and CNTs-Fe3O4/C2H6O2 hybrid nanofluid. Additionally, the friction coefficient (C-fx), rate of heat transport (H-tx), and rate of nanoparticle transport (Nt(x) are calculated using GMDH. The numerical results for the current analysis are illustrated via tables, graphs, and contour plots. The efficiency of the proposed GMDH models is assessed using statistical measures such as MSE, MAE, RMSE, R, Error mean and Error StD. The predicted values are very close to the numerical results, and the coefficient of determination R-2 of C-fx,N-tx, and H-tx are 1, 0.97836 and 0.9960, respectively, which shows the best settlement

Impact of Brine Composition and Concentration on Capillary Pressure and Residual Oil Saturation in Limestone Core Samples

Low salinity water flooding (LSF) is a relatively simple and cheap EOR technique in which the salinit y of the injected water is optimized (by desalination and/or modification) to improve oil recovery over conventional waterflooding. Extensive laboratory experiments investigating the effect of LSF are available in the literature. Sulfate-rich as well as diluted brines have shown promising potential to increase oil production in limestone core samples. To quantify the low salinity effect, spontaneous imbibition and/or tertiary waterflooding experiments have been reported. For the first time in literature, this paper presents a comprehensive study of the centrifuge technique to investigate low salinity effect in carbonate samples. The study is divided into three parts. At first, a comprehensive screening was performed on the impact of different connate water and imbibition brine compositions/combinations on the spontaneous imbibition behavior. Second, the subsequent forced imbibition of the samples using the centrifuge method to investigate the impact of brine compositions on residual saturations and capillary pressure. Finally, three unsteady-state (USS) core floodings were conducted in order to examine the potential of the different brines to increase oil recovery in secondary mode (brine injection at connate water saturation) and tertiary mode (exchange of injection brine at mature recovery stage). The experiments were performed using Indiana limestone outcrops. The main conclusions of the study are spontaneous imbibition experiments only showed oil recovery in case the salinity of the imbibing water (IW) is lower than the salinity of the connate water (CW). No oil production was observed when the imbibing water had a higher salinity than the connate water or the salinity of the connate water and imbibing brine were identical. Moreover, the spontaneous imbibition experiments indicated that diluting the salinity of the imbibing water has a larger potential to spontaneously recover oil than the introduction of sulfate-rich sea water. The centrifuge experiments confirmed a connection between the overall salinity and oil recovery. As the salinity of the imbibing brines decreases, the capillary imbibition pressure curves showed an increasing water-wetting tendency and simultaneous reduction of the remaining oil saturation. The lowest remaining oil saturation was obtained for diluted sea water as CW and IW. The core flooding experiments reflected the results of the spontaneous imbibition and centrifuge experiments. Injecting brine at a rate of 0.05 cc/min, sea water and especially diluted sea water resulted in a significant higher oil recovery compared to formation brine. Moreover, when comparing secondary mode experiments, the remaining oil saturation after flooding by diluted sea water, sea water and formation water was 30.6 %, 35.5 % and 37.4 %, respectively. In tertiary injection mode, sea water did not lead to extra oil recovery while diluted sea water led to an additional oil recovery of 5.6 % in one out of two tertiary injection applications

An Evaluation of Prediction Equations for the 6 Minute Walk Test in Healthy European Adults Aged 50-85 Years

This study compared actual 6 minute walk test (6MWT) performance with predicted 6MWT using previously validated equations and then determined whether allometric modelling offers a sounder alternative to estimating 6MWT in adults aged 50-80 years.We compared actual 6MWT performance against predicted 6MWT in 125 adults aged 50-85 years (62 male, 63 female). In a second sample of 246 adults aged 50-85 years (74 male, 172 female), a new prediction equation for 6MWT performance was developed using allometric modelling. This equation was then cross validated using the same sample that the other prediction equations were compared with.Significant relationships were evident between 6MWT actual and 6MWT predicted using all of the commonly available prediction equations (all P<0.05 or better) with the exception of the Alameri et al prediction equation (P>0.05). A series of paired t-tests indicated significant differences between 6MWT actual and 6MWT predicted for all available prediction equations (all P<0.05 or better) with the exception of the Iwama et al equation (P = .540). The Iwama et al equation also had similar bias (79.8m) and a coefficient of variation of over 15%. Using sample 2, a log-linear model significantly predicted 6MWT from the log of body mass and height and age (P = 0.001, adjusted R2 = .526), predicting 52.6% of the variance in actual 6MWT. When this allometric equation was applied to the original sample, the relationship between 6MWT actual and 6MWT predicted was in excess of values reported for the other previously validated prediction equations (r = .706, P = 0.001). There was a significant difference between actual 6MWT and 6MWT predicted using this new equation (P = 0.001) but the bias, standard deviation of differences and coefficient of variation were all less than for the other equations.Where actual assessment of the 6MWT is not possible, the allometrically derived equation presented in the current study, offers a viable alternative which has been cross validated and has the least SD of differences and smallest coefficient of variation compared to any of the previously validated equations for the 6MWT