How Knowledge Management Implementation Affects the Performance of Egyptian Construction Companies

This study examines the effectiveness of knowledge management systems within the construction industry in Egypt from the perspective of knowledge infrastructure capability (KIC), knowledge process capability (KPC) and their impact on business performance (BP) from the financial, consumer, learning and growth, supplier and internal perspectives. The sample consists of 75 first class Egyptian construction companies. The authors used a questionnaire that was modified from the questionnaire previously used by Gold et al., (2001) and Smith (2006). The authors used one-way ANOVA, t-tests and OLS regressions. The results indicated that both knowledge infrastructure capability (KIC) and knowledge process capability (KPC) have a positive effect on business performance (BP). The results also indicate that organizations with well-developed training and development plans have significantly higher KIC and KPC scores compared to those that do not have such plans

Growing up between two worlds: a portrait of second-generation American a multimedia project

This professional project is a multimedia project focusing on stories of three second-generation Americans in West Virginia. The project is disseminated using a website. It includes content curated by the project author (photos, videos, written stories, data visualization) and information selected by the participants themselves. The content will add to the information available on different cultural communities in West Virginia in general, and on second-generation Americans in particular. It is hoped the project, through its portrayals of these individuals and their immigrant families, will help to dispel and counter some of the stereotypical depictions of immigrants. With this goal in mind, this project attempts to communicate a more complex and nuanced portrait of these individuals and present their stories in a way that differs from the typically immigrants lives portrayed by the media

Three Essays on Monetary Economics

This thesis consists of three chapters. A common theme across these chapters is to understand and evaluate the dynamics of inflation and expectations. In the following, the results of the individual chapters are presented. Chapter 1: Anchoring Inflation Expectations From Below: New Evidence From the European Commission's Consumer Survey Inflation rates in the euro-area member states have been remarkably low in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. This chapter investigates the effects of this evolution in the inflation environment on the degree of consumers' inflation expectations anchoring. For that, we propose a new anchoring measure based on the aggregate qualitative expectations answers from the European Commission's consumer survey. Our indicator reveals a significant heterogeneity across euro-area countries. Therefore, we employ panel regressions to test the extent to which consumers' expectations are well anchored by comparing across various inflation environments. We find that the degree of anchoring is particularly weak when inflation is below the ECB price stability target. The deviations of inflation from the target only exerts a negative impact on the anchoring degree of consumers' expectations when inflation is low or persistently so. For the European Central Bank, this alerts that the degree of consumers' anchoring has deteriorated in the recent period of low inflation than was the case when inflation rates were more often around the price stability target across the euro area. Chapter 2: The Information Content of Market-Based Measures for the Long-Term Inflation Expectations of Professionals: Evidence from a MIDAS Analysis Long-term inflation expectations taken from the Survey of Professional Forecasters are a major source of information for monetary policy. Unfortunately, they are published only on a quarterly basis. This chapter investigates the daily information content of market-based measures, such as inflation-linked swaps and breakeven inflation rates, for the next survey outcome. Using a Mixed Data Sampling approach, we establish that professional forecasters account for the daily dynamics of market-based measures when they submit their long-term inflation expectations. We propose a daily indicator of professionals' expectations which outperforms alternative indicators that ignore the high-frequency dynamics of market-based measures. To illustrate the usefulness of the new indicator, we provide new evidence on the (re-)anchoring of U.S. inflation expectations. Chapter 3: Whither Egypt Monetary Policy? An Analysis of the Post 2005 Progressions A review of the monetary business-cycle literature on Egypt reveals several anomalies with respect to the effectiveness, direction, and magnitude, of various monetary transmission mechanisms, such as interest rate and exchange rate. This chapter models Egypt's monetary policy during the transition period to explicit inflation targeting in the last decade while directly consider the foreign component of that policy which has been marginalized in early literature. Our results deliver solutions to the anomalies reported in prior evidence. First, the dynamic impact of domestic interest rate on inflation rate is now plausible and much stronger than reported before. This is an imperative step forward to implementing the inflation-targeting regime proposed by the Central Bank of Egypt. Second, the effects of exchange rate on main macroeconomic variables are still as strong as reported in previous periods despite that the latter was officially relaxed as a nominal anchor since 2003. Third, the leverage of foreign policy shocks on the economy is no less than that of domestic shocks

Design of Extended Channel Ge-source TFET for Low Power Applications

In this paper, a novel design of a TFET structure using Ge-source and extending a part of the channel into the source is proposed. The DC performance is analyzed by evaluating the ON current, ION/IOFF ratio and subthreshold swing (SS). Moreover, the high-frequency performance is inspected in terms of transconductance (gm) and unit-gain cutoff frequency (fT). All simulations are performed utilizing 2D SILVACO TCAD. It is demonstrated that the ON current and the cut-off frequency can be simultaneously improved by appropriate design of the proposed structure

The Safety and Efficacy of Cervical Laminectomy and Fusion versus Cervical Laminoplasty Surgery in Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy: A Prospective Randomized Trial

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of evidence of whether degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) is best treated through cervical laminoplasty (CLP) or cervical laminectomy with lateral mass fusion due to the lack of prospective randomized studies that are well designed. We conducted the largest prospective randomized trial to date to determine the comparative effectiveness and safety of both approaches. METHODS: In this prospective, randomized trial, we randomly assigned patients who had symptoms or signs of DCM to undergo either cervical laminectomy and lateral mass fixation (CLF) or CLP. The primary outcome measures were the change in the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), neck disability index, modified Japanese Orthopedic Association (mJOA) score, and Nurick’s myelopathy grading 1 year after surgery. The secondary outcome measures were the intraoperative, post-operative complications, hospital stay, C2-7 Cobb’s angle, and Odom’s criteria. The follow-up period was at least 1 year. RESULTS: A total of 30 patients (mean age, 54.5 ± 5.5 years, 70% of men) underwent prospective randomization. There was a significantly greater improvement in neck pain (VAS) in the CLF group at 1 year (p < 0.05). The improvement in the mJOA and Nurick’s myelopathy grading showed insignificant improvement between both groups. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the patient’s post-operative satisfaction (Odom’s criteria). The mean operative time was significantly longer in the CLF group (p < 0.001), with no significant difference in the post-operative complications, however, there was a higher rate of C5 palsy, dural tear and infection in the CLF, and a higher rate of instrumentation failure in the CLP. The mean hospital stay was significantly longer in the posterior group (p < 0.05). Finally, there was a significant better improvement in the C2-7 Cobb’s angle at 1 year in the CLF group (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Among patients with multilevel DCM, the CLF approach was significantly better regarding the post-operative pain and Cobb’s angle while the CLP was significantly better in terms of shorter hospital stay and operative time

Strong improvement of permeability and rejection performance of graphene oxide membrane by engineered interlayer spacing

Advanced membranes fabricated from multilayer/laminated graphene oxide (GO) are promising in water treatment applications as they provide very high flux and excellent rejection of various water pollutants. However, these membranes have limited viability, and suffer from instabilities and swelling due to the hydrophilic nature of GO. In this work, the permeability and rejection performance of laminated GO membranes were improved via functionalization with ethylenediamine (EDA) and polyethyleneimine (PEI). The membranes are fabricated via the pressure-assembly stacking technique, and their structure is well characterized. The performance, rejection, and stability of the fabricated functionalized GO membranes were evaluated. Pillaring the GO layers using diamine and polyamine resulted in exceptionally high water permeability of 113 L/m2h (LMH) compared to only 28 LMH for the pristine GO membrane while simultaneously satisfying high rejection of multivalent salts of 79.4, 35.4, and 19.6 % for Na2SO4, MgCl2, and NaCl, respectively. The results obtained indicate that proper functionalization of GO provides a roadmap for the potential commercialization of such advanced membranes in water treatment applications.</p

Business of love: exploring motivations to use and sentiments towards online dating using big data analytics

Online Dating has increased in popularity over the past few years. With the evolution of technology and the internet’s increasing capabilities of interaction, online dating has altered the dating world and offered a convenient, fast, and trendy way to find a partner. In fact, it has yielded an industry that has been growing at a quick pace of 5.3% yearly and was estimated to reach $3 billion of revenues in the US only in 2016, generated by hundreds of online dating businesses. However, both big and small players in the multi-billion dollar industry compete to bring in as many subscribers as they can, using various state-of the-art technologies which are the key to their success. To stay ahead of the competition, in-depth knowledge of consumers is an irreplaceable factor. Adopting the “Uses and Gratifications” approach, the aim of this paper is to boost the knowledge of businesses operating in the field by shedding light on the primary motivations of online daters. It also examines the user experience by identifying sentiments toward dating platforms and finds more insights regarding the causes behind those sentiments. A large set of reviews publicly posted by users was employed as the source of data. The study carried out on 1346 reviews about 47 dating platforms has revealed six primary motivations for using online dating. People surf dating sites to seek love or a serious relationship, meet new people, engage in casual relationships, utilize the convenience offered through virtual dating, follow the trend of meeting others via dating sites, or to validate their personal image which in return provides self-satisfaction to the dater. Among all, the first motivation appeared to be the strongest. The employed text analytics tools named SAS VA and Microsoft Power BI have shown positive, average, and negative sentiments across users towards online dating businesses. Of these, the larger group of users expressed negative sentiment. The study demonstrated that the negative experience was mainly attributed to gaps in the offered services, technology, and quality of other subscribers