Coping strategies of job stress among managers of electronics industries in Malaysia

Job stress is ubiquitous in today’s organizations, and the costs of these phenomena cut across all levels of society. In recent years, researchers considering job stress in the workplace have made great strides in understanding several aspects of the stress phenomenon in the field of organizational behavior. Thus, it becomes more important that the coping methods of these job stresses are well explored and directly linked to individuals experiencing this situation, in order to ensure the right methods can be used for the best benefits in coping with job stresses. This research presents an integration of past research and theory that models the relationship of antecedents of job stress and coping methods among managers. The scope of this study is limited to managerial positions in electronics firms in Malaysia. Job stress antecedents in this study are related to organizational sources of stress and individual’s personality traits. A set of demographic factors like age, gender and length of services, to name a few, are also studied as influencing factors to job stress. The final framework in this study includes the coping variables, in which will determine the best and most suitable coping methods for managers under job stress. A proportional sampling plan will be done to cover the surveys to be covering all major locations of electronics firms in Malaysia. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study will be discussed in details. The implication of the study would be extremely beneficial for electronics organizations in not only identifying the organizational sources of job stress, but also to understand the personality behaviors of their management staffs. More importantly, this study will recommend the best coping methods for managers that would enable the leadership team in the electronics organizations to be able to handle job stress more efficiently. This paper will discuss the pilot study results of this research

Experimental and parametric studies of a louvered fin and flat tube compact heat exchanger using computational fluid dynamics

AbstractThe present study aimed to perform the parametric analysis on thermo-hydraulic performance of a compact heat exchanger using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The analysis has been carried out at different frontal air velocities by varying the geometrical parameters such as fin pitch, transverse tube pitch, longitudinal tube pitch, louver pitch and louver angle. The air side performance of the heat exchanger has been evaluated by calculating Colburn factor (j) and Fanning friction factor (f). The comparison of CFD results with the experimental data exhibited a good agreement and the influence of various geometrical parameters for the selected range of values on the pressure drop, heat transfer coefficient and goodness factor was analyzed. The results obtained from the analysis will be very useful to optimize the louvered fin and flat tube compact heat exchanger for better thermo-hydraulic performance analysis without the need of time consuming and expensive experimentation

A new variety of Gymnosporia emarginata (Celastraceae) from the Coromandel Coast of Peninsular India

A new variety, Gymnosporia emarginata (Willd.) Thwaites var. coromandelica N.Balach. & P. Umamaheswari (Celastraceae) has been described from Tamil Nadu, India. The diagnostic characters of this variety are: long stamens, ovary immersed in the disc, style sessile and stigma lobes converged. Detailed descriptions, differences in characters between the 2 varieties, ITS based phylogenetic analysis and related images are provided for easy identification

Design of Multifunctional Lattice‐Frame Materials for Compact Heat Exchangers

Structured porous materials show great potential as extended surfaces in heat-exchange applications that also require design for load-bearing capability. In particular, lattice-frame materials (LFM) are known for their superior strength-to-weight ratio; this work presents a comprehensive experimental and numerical study of fluid flow and heat transfer in porous LFMs. Flow through a periodic unit cell of the material is simulated to characterize the forced-convection performance under hydraulically and thermally fully developed conditions. The performance of LFMs with a tetrahedral ligament configuration is characterized as a function of Reynolds number in the laminar regime (150 \u3c Re \u3c 1000) in terms of Nusselt number and friction factor; the effect of porosity is studied by changing the ligament diameter. Experiments are performed for a subset of porosities to validate the numerical approach. A method is demonstrated for utilizing the simulation results, which assume perfect surface efficiency, to predict the performance of LFMs with non-ideal surface efficiency, based on the conduction resistance of the ligaments. It is shown that the thermal behavior of the ligaments closely matches that of cylindrical fins in cross flow and that this analogy can be used to calculate the overall surface efficiency. The implications of the current results on the design of compact heat exchangers using LFMs is assessed using several conventional performance metrics. Our analysis illustrates the challenges in defining any one universal performance metric for compact heat exchanger design; an appropriate performance metric must be selected that accounts for the particular multifunctional performance characteristics of interest. LFMs are shown to provide the benefits of high-porosity and high surface area-to-volume ratio of materials such as metal foams, while also incurring lower pressure drops and displaying higher structural integrity. This makes them ideal for heat exchangers in aerospace and other applications demanding such multifunctional capabilities. The characterization provided in this study readily allows LFM designs for heat exchanger applications with combined heat-transfer and pressure-drop constraints

Development and validation of integrated pest management modules against spotted pod borer Maruca vitrata Fabricius on garden bean Lablab purpureus var. typicus (L.)

To reduce the detrimental effect of insecticides, an effective Integrated Pest Management (IPM) module is necessary for the eco-friendly management of Maruca vitrata in garden bean ecosystem. Two field trials were carried out to evaluate the efficacy of different insecticides and botanicals against M. vitrata on Lablab purpureus var. typicus. Two seasons field evaluation of insecticides revealed that chlorantraniliprole 18.5 SC  was the most effective treatment to control the pest recorded 0.11 and 0.36 larva/plant in two seasons, respectively after two rounds of spray followed by flubendiamide 20 WG (0.46 and 0.92 larva/ plant) and emamectin benzoate 5 SG (0.50 and 0.95 larva/plant). Among botanicals tested, commercial neem formulation and 5% Ageratina adenophora recorded the least larval count of 1.64 & 1.05 larva/plant and 2.24 & 1.45 larva/plant in two seasons, respectively. IPM modules were developed with three effective insecticides (chlorantraniliprole 18.5 SC, flubendiamide 20 WG and emamectin benzoate 5 SG), two effective botanicals (commercial neem formulation 1500 ppm and 5% A. adenophora) along with the pheromone trap for validation. All the IPM modules were equally effective in managing M. vitrata population on L. purpureus and recorded a significantly (at 5 %) lower larval population than the farmer’s practice. The residues of chlorantraniliprole, flubendiamide and emamectin benzoate reached below the detectable level at the time of harvest. The population reduction of predatory coccinellids and spiders was also lower in IPM modules than in farmer’s practice. An increased benefit cost (1.95 to 1.99) ratio was observed in IPM modules. 

Organizational stressors and job stress among Malaysian managers: the moderating role of personality traits

Job stress is vastly present in today’s organizations, and the costs of these phenomena cut across all levels of society. In recent years, researchers considering job stress in the workplace have made great strides in understanding several aspects of the stress phenomenon in the field of organizational behavior. Thus, it becomes more important that the individual variables of these job stresses are well explored and directly linked to individuals experiencing this situation, in order to ensure the right stressors are well understood and other moderating functions are studied, like the personality variables. This research presents an integration of past research and theory that models the relationship of organizational stressors like conflict, work overload, unfavorable work condition, and the moderating role of personality traits among managers. The scope of this study is limited to managerial positions in electronics firms in Malaysia. A set of demographic factors like gender, marital status and educational background, are also studied as influencing factors to job stress. The final framework in this study includes the organizational stressors as the independent variable and job stress as the dependent variable, with the personality traits moderating that relationship. A proportional sampling plan will be done to cover the surveys to be covering all major locations of electronics firms in Malaysia. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study will be discussed in details. The implication of the study would be extremely beneficial for electronics organizations in not only identifying the organizational sources of job stress, but also to understand the personality behaviors of their management staffs and how that related to job stress. Organizational stressors play a big role in the study, in which understanding its influence to job stress and how to manage and cope would enable the leadership team in the electronics organizations to be able to handle job stress more efficiently

Job Stress among Malaysian Managers: The Moderating Role of Coping Methods

Job stress is vastly present in today’s organizations, and the costs of these phenomena cut across all levels of society. In recent years, researchers considering job stress in the workplace have made great strides in understanding several aspects of the stress phenomenon in the field of organizational behavior. Thus, it becomes more important that the coping methods of these job stresses are well explored and directly linked to individuals experiencing this situation, in order to ensure the right methods can be used for the best benefits in coping with job stresses. This research presents an integration of past research and theory that models the relationship of antecedents of job stress and coping methods among managers. The scope of this case study is limited to managerial positions in electronics firms in Malaysia. A set of demographic factors like gender, marital status and educational background, are also studied as influencing factors to job stress. The final framework in this study includes the coping variables, in which will determine the best and most suitable coping methods for managers under job stress. A proportional sampling plan will be done to cover the surveys to be covering all major locations of electronics firms in Malaysia. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study will be discussed in details. The implication of the study would be extremely beneficial for electronics organizations in not only identifying the organizational sources of job stress, but also to understand the personality behaviors of their management staffs. More importantly, this study will recommend the best coping methods for managers that would enable the leadership team in the electronics organizations to be able to handle job stress more efficiently

MISFIRE DETECTION IN A MULTI-CYLINDER DIESEL ENGINE: A MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH

Misfire is another type of abnormal combustion. When engine misfires, cylinder (or cylinders) is not producing its normal amount of power. Engine misfire also has negative effects on engine exhaust emissions such as HC, CO, and NOx. Engine misfire should be detected and eliminated. Normal combustion and misfire in the cylinder (if any) generates vibrations in the engine block. The vibration characters due to misfire are unique for a particular cylinder. This can be diagnosed by processing the vibration signals acquired from the engine cylinder block using a piezoelectric accelerometer. The obtained signals were decoded using statistical parameters, like, Kurtosis, standard deviation, mean, median, etc. Misfire identification algorithms such as AdaBoost, LogitBoost, MultiClass Classifier, and J48 were used as tools for feature selection and classification. The signals were trained and tested by the selected classifiers. The classification accuracy of selected classifiers were compared and presented in this paper. MultiClass Classifier was found to be performing better with selected statistical features compared to other classifiers

Job Stress among Malaysian Managers: The Moderating Role of Coping Methods

Job stress is vastly present in today’s organizations, and the costs of these phenomena cut across all levels of society. In recent years, researchers considering job stress in the workplace have made great strides in understanding several aspects of the stress phenomenon in the field of organizational behavior. Thus, it becomes more important that the coping methods of these job stresses are well explored and directly linked to individuals experiencing this situation, in order to ensure the right methods can be used for the best benefits in coping with job stresses. This research presents an integration of past research and theory that models the relationship of antecedents of job stress and coping methods among managers. The scope of this case study is limited to managerial positions in electronics firms in Malaysia. A set of demographic factors like gender, marital status and educational background, are also studied as influencing factors to job stress. The final framework in this study includes the coping variables, in which will determine the best and most suitable coping methods for managers under job stress. A proportional sampling plan will be done to cover the surveys to be covering all major locations of electronics firms in Malaysia. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study will be discussed in details. The implication of the study would be extremely beneficial for electronics organizations in not only identifying the organizational sources of job stress, but also to understand the personality behaviors of their management staffs. More importantly, this study will recommend the best coping methods for managers that would enable the leadership team in the electronics organizations to be able to handle job stress more efficiently

Programmable Payment Channels

One approach for scaling blockchains is to create bilateral, offchain channels, known as payment/state channels, that can protect parties against cheating via onchain collateralization. While such channels have been studied extensively, not much attention has been given to programmability, where the parties can agree to dynamically enforce arbitrary conditions over their payments without going onchain. We introduce the notion of a programmable payment channel ($\mathsf{PPC}$) that allows two parties to do exactly this. In particular, our notion of programmability enables the sender of a (unidirectional) payment to dynamically set the terms and conditions for each individual payment using a smart contract. Of course, the verification of the payment conditions (and the payment itself) happens offchain as long as the parties behave honestly. If either party violates any of the terms, then the other party can deploy the smart contract onchain to receive a remedy as agreed upon in the contract. In this paper, we make the following contributions: -- we formalize $\mathsf{PPC}$ as an ideal functionality $\mathcal{F}_{\mathsf{PPC}}$ in the universal composable framework, and build lightweight implementations of applications such as hash timelocked contracts (HTLCs), reverse HTLCs , and rock-paper-scissors in the $\mathcal{F}_{\mathsf{PPC}}$-hybrid model; -- we show how $\mathcal{F}_{\mathsf{PPC}}$ can be easily modified to capture the state channels functionality $\mathcal{F}_{\mathsf{SC}}$ (described in prior works) where two parties can execute dynamically chosen arbitrary two-party contracts (including those that take deposits from both parties) offchain, i.e., we show how to efficiently realize $\mathcal{F}_{\mathsf{SC}}$ in the $\mathcal{F}_{\mathsf{PPC}}$-hybrid model; -- we show an implementation of $\mathcal{F}_{\mathsf{PPC}}$ on blockchains supporting smart contracts (such as Ethereum), and provide several optimizations to enable concurrent programmable transactions---the gas overhead of an HTLC PPC contract is $<$ 100K, amortized over many offchain payments. We note that our implementations of $\mathcal{F}_{\mathsf{PPC}}$ and $\mathcal{F}_{\mathsf{SC}}$ depend on the CREATE2 opcode which allows one to compute the deployment address of a contract (without having to deploy it)