Multidimensional performance measures and factors and their linkage with performance

Purpose – This study investigates the extent to which performance measures (PMs) are used, the relationship between multidimensional PMs and firm performance and the factors related to firms’ PM use. Design/methodology/approach – The authors surveyed a sample of Malaysian manufacturing firms. Participants responded to a questionnaire indicating their use of PMs, firm performance, level of managerial commitment, degree of environmental uncertainty and firm’s use of technology. Findings – The results indicate a high degree of PM use related to financial indicators, internal efficiency and customer-related metrics. The results also demonstrate that firm performance has significant positive relationships with use of PMs related to quality and customers, efficiency, innovativeness and social responsibility, as well as comprehensive PM use. Industry variation, firm size, technology use and environmental uncertainty are also significantly related to PM use. Practical implications – Performance measurement systems (PMSs) are an important tool for improving organisational strategy in rapidly changing markets. These findings underscore the significant role of PMSs in manufacturing firms’ performance, including emerging economies. The results suggest that individual PMS approaches should align with each firm’s evolving needs and the characteristics of the sector and environment in which each firm operates. Originality/value – This study advances understandings of the contingency approach to PMSs in manufacturing environments

Corporate social responsibility: The involvement of small medium enterprises

The purpose of the paper is to study the involvement of corporate social responsibility by small medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. Based on the sample taken from SMEs listed under Enterprise 50 (E50) over five years, questionnaires were distributed to find out their involvement in CSR and their motivation for engaging in CSR activities.For this purpose Carroll’s Pyramid of CSR was used as the framework.It was found that that majority of the SMEs involved in ethical responsibility, followed by legal responsibility, economic responsibility and lastly, philanthropic responsibility.It showed that ethical responsibility as the foundation of CSR involvement by Malaysian SMEs and this result is contrary to Carroll’s Pyramid of CSR.The findings also reveal the SMEs were motivated firstly by their own beliefs and values, followed by religious thought and that CSR may enhance the company’s reputation.This motivation is in line with their emphasis on ethical responsibility when engaged in CSR. This study contributes to knowledge about CSR by small medium enterprises, which is still lacking in the literature on CSR, particularly in Malaysia

Phytoplankton Composition of Sematan estuary, Sarawak

Phytoplankton is an autotrophic component of plankton that drifts in both freshwater and marine environments. Proliferation of some phytoplankton species resulted in Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). This is a phenomenon which the bloom of toxic or harmful phytoplankton responsible death of aquatic life, destruction of marine ecosystem and seafood unsafe for consumption. The mechanism of this organism to proliferate in the estuarine areas has not been well studied and fully understood. A study was conducted to determine the composition of phytoplankton at Sematan estuary in Lundu, Sarawak. Both qualitative and quantitative phytoplankton samples were collected monthly from September 2013 until March 2014. Fourteen taxa of phytoplankton were identified to generic level and the dominant group was diatoms. The dominance diatoms were Coscinodiscus and Pleurosigma. Physical parameters showed weak relationship with cell density except for transparency while the macronutrients, all of the parameters have weak impact towards the cell density. There were 6 HABs genera found which were Ceratium, Chaetoceros, Odontella, Rhizosolenia, Thalassionema and Nitzschia. However, more sampling should be done in order to get more accurate data

A hierarchical self-healing SLA for cloud computing

The service level agreement (SLA) is a mutual contract between the service provider and consumer which determines the agreed service level objective (SLO). The common SLA is a plain documental agreement without any relation to other dependent SLAs during the different layers of cloud computing. Hence, the cloud computing environment needs the hierarchical and autonomic SLA. This paper proposes the SH-SLA model to generate a hierarchical self-healing SLA in cloud computing. The self-healing ability contains the SLA monitoring, violation detecting and violation reacting processes. In SH-SLA, the related SLAs communicate with each other hierarchically. The SLA would be able to check its QoS and notify the recent status to dependent SLAs. Furthermore, SH-SLA could prevent or propagate the notified violations by an urgent reaction. Consequently, the service providers have a great chance to prevent the violated SLA before sensing by end users. The SH-SLA model is simulated and the experiment results have presented the violation detection and reaction abilities of the proposed model in cloud computing. Besides, the end users meet the lesser violations in SH-SLA than the common SLA

Genetic algorithms-based quality of service service selection in cloud computing using multilayer perceptron

There exist many similar services by different service providers available within the cloud environment. When the service offerings are packaged with similar functionalities, service consumers will be having a difficult time in evaluating the most relevant services that fit to their individual requirement. To address this issue, this paper proposes an effective services classification in cloud environment, which will classify the equivalent services based on their quality of service (QoS). The attribute selection method is based genetic algorithms (GA) and is designed to rank the cloud services before the attributes are being fed into a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) classification system. The results have shown a considerably high performance of 98.5%

Dinoprostone in first trimester miscarriages: a prospective observational study in a Malaysian Tertiary Healthcare Institution

The objective of this paper was to evaluate the outcome of medical evacuation of first trimester miscarriages using dinoprostone. A prospective observational study in a tertiary centre between 1st January and 31st December 2018 in Obstetrics and Gynaecology unit, UKM Medical Centre. Women diagnosed with incomplete and missed miscarriage (n=41) at or less than 13 weeks of gestation were recruited. Dinoprostone 3 mg was inserted into the posterior fornix, twice within 6 h apart on day-1 followed by similar protocol on day-2. Patients were reassessed clinically and sonographically upon passing out products of conception, at 48 h and day-7. Complete evacuation was defined as closed cervical os and/or endometrial thickness of less than 15 mm sonographically. Treatment failure was defined as failure to achieve complete evacuation by day-7. Overall success rate was 55.3% (n=26) being better in incomplete (n=6, 100%) as compared to missed miscarriage (n=21, 48.8%, p=0.03). Those with successful evacuation required dinosprostone at a mean of 8.4 ± 2.9 mg achieving complete miscarriage within a mean of 27.8 ± 16.6 h. Mean pain score was 5.8 ± 0.8 with mean patient satisfaction score of 8.7 ± 0.8. Mean drop in haemoglobin was 0.7 ± 0.2 g/dL. No major adverse effects were reported. Medical evacuation of miscarriage using intravaginal dinoprostone is safe and promising, with acceptable success rate and high patient satisfaction. This study supported previous studies suggesting presence of prostaglandin E2 receptors in the first trimester

THE EFFECTS OF GENTAMICIN-IMPREGNATED COLLAGEN SPONGE VERSUS GENTAMICIN-IMPREGNATED POLYMETHYLMETHACRYLATE BEADS IN PATIENTS WITH OSTEOMYELITIS

Objective: The usage of antibiotic-impregnated polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) beads is regarded as the gold standard for local antibiotic delivery. However, the relatively new antibiotic-impregnated collagen sponge has multiple advantages over it. The objective of this study is to compare the measurable effects between gentamicin-impregnated collagen sponge and gentamicin-impregnated (PMMA) beads in patients with osteomyelitis.Methods: This is a case–control study which involved 60 patients who were diagnosed with osteomyelitis between January 2014 and June 2015, and underwent first surgical debridement with application of either gentamicin-impregnated collagen sponge (n=28) or gentamicin-impregnated PMMA beads (n=32). The numbers of debridement, trend of blood parameters, duration of hospitalization, and total duration of systemic antibiotic therapy needed to be completed were reviewed from the patients' file.Results: A total of 53 patients of 60 were diagnosed with osteomyelitis of the lower limbs, while the remaining seven were involving the upper limbs. The gentamicin-impregnated collagen sponge group has significant lower reoperative rate (p<0.05) and also significant reduction of total white cell count in 6 weeks (p<0.05). The two groups showed no statistical difference in regard of duration of hospital admission, duration of systemic antibiotic therapy completed, and the reduction of C-reactive protein at 6 weeks post-debridement.Conclusion: This study reiterates the efficacy of gentamicin-impregnated collagen sponge that results in lower reoperative rate as compared to conventional gentamicin-impregnated PMMA beads

Determinants of financing preferences of micro enterprises

In the development of business establishments, the financing factor has always been a major consideration that is always put on top of the organisation’s main priorities. This study examines the type of financing preferences of micro enterprises; and to investigate factors influencing their preferences. Based on 164 valid responses, the findings revealed that most respondents prefer internal funding. While the retained profit and owners’ own savings are the main sources of internal fund; bank loan is the major external source of funding among the respondents. Furthermore educational level, loan documentation and procedures, debt commitment; and growth planning are found to have significant link with the financing preference. This paper ought to provide new evidence and inferable source in financing preference

Software maintainability assessment based on collaborative CMMI model

Software constantly needs new features or bug fixes. Maintainable software is simple to extend and fix which encourages the software's uptake and use. The Software Sustainability Institute can advise you on the design and development of maintainable software that will benefit both you and your users. Therefore, capability maturity model integration (CMMI) is a process improvement approach that provides organisations with the essential elements of effective processes that ultimately improve their performance. The propose maintainability assessment of cmmi based on multi-agent system (MAS) to identify the processes measurement of SM. in order to verify our proposed CMMI framework based on MAS architecture, pilot study is conducted using a questionnaire survey. Rasch model is used to analyse the pilot data. Items reliability is found strong correlation between measured and the model designed. The results shows that the person raw score-to-measure correlation is 0.51 (approximate due to missing data) and Cronbach Alpha (kr-20) person raw score reliability = .94