Effect of Superplasticizer Dosage on Compressive Strength and Microstructure of High Volume Basic-Oxygen Slag Mortar Exposed to Sea Water Attacks

The influence of superplasticizer addition on durability reinforcement of cement mortars made with basic-oxygen blast-furnace slag fine aggregate (BOF) as completely substitute for natural sand after being exposed to sea water solution for 6 months was evaluated by determining physico-mechanical characteristics in terms of water absorption and compressive strength in addition to microstructure analysis. In this procedure, all studied mixtures were doped with 1% and 2% superplasticizer. After the initial curing of samples in tap water for 28 days, they were subjected to sea water solution for 6 months using water to binder ratios of 0.35 and 0.45. The new hydration phases and microstructure of hardened specimens were identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The results showed that cement mortars with slag fine aggregate blended with 2% SP offered better water absorption, compressive strength and microstructure than their counterparts with natural sand against sea water attacks. Therefore, they can be used in offshore structure applications

Strategic Future Directions for Developing STEM Education in Higher Education in Egypt as a Driver of Innovation Economy

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education has been achieving growing international attention. As the world economy is becoming more diversified and dependent on innovation, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) skills and expertise are progressively more needed for competition and development. Egyptian students are less competitive with other countries in STEM fields. With this new movement in education to focus more on STEM, Egyptian policymakers need to develop strategic future directions for developing STEM education in higher education in Egypt as a driver of innovation economy. The main objective of this paper is to propose strategic future directions for developing STEM education in higher education in Egypt as a driver of innovation economy, to achieve this objective the paper starts by outlining historical perspective regarding the roots of STEM education, and then followed up with the attempt to conceptualize and define the basic terms of the paper. It then outlined the features of STEM education as a national priority, since it is a driver of innovation economy. The contemporary current status of STEM education efforts in Egypt was analyzed by utilizing SWOT analysis. Finally, strategic future directions for developing STEM education in higher education in Egypt were proposed. Keywords: STEM education, Innovation Economy

Public Universities Faculty and Leaders' Perspectives on the Role of Public Egyptian Universities in Developing National Innovation System

This paper describes university faculty and leaders' perspectives on the role of Public Egyptian universities in developing national innovation system(NIS), as universities are often cited as a critical institutional actors in national innovation systems, most of the literature on national innovation systems defines them as the institutions and actors that are critical for the creation, development, and diffusion of innovations. This qualitative study is based on interviews with 73 University Faculty and Leaders in  Egypt, finds possible advantages for Public Egyptian universities to develop national innovation system, as well as a number of barriers that hinder the Public Egyptian universities to develop national innovation system. The main objective of this paper is to discuss the relevance of innovation systems to economic growth , analyze the Egyptian NIS beginning with a brief introduction of the role of innovation and an examination of the elements that comprise national innovation systems, interaction between various actors involved, and shows how the Public Egyptian universities are important players in developing the National Innovation System. One important theme in this paper is to define the challenges that faces the Public Egyptian universities to substantially support NIS. Three existing Frameworks ( “Mode 2 ” ,”Triple Helix” and “Entrepreneurial University) to explain the significance of universities linkages to NIS  are discussed, and the context of developing innovation systems in Egypt and the government initiatives in that regard will be explored. Keywords: Innovation ,National Innovation System; Egyptian universities; knowledge Innovation; education reform;  Mode 2;  Triple Helix

Strategic Alternatives for Transforming Public Egyptian Universities to World-Class Universities

In the past decade, the term “world-class university (WCU)” - also called “globally competitive universities”, “world-class”, “elite”, or “flagship” universities- has become a catch phrase. This is simply not only for improving the quality of learning and research in higher education, but is also more significant for developing the competency to compete in the global higher education marketplace through the acquisition and formation of advanced knowledge. The main objective of this paper is to propose strategic alternatives for transforming public Egyptian universities to world-class universities. In achieving this objective, the paper starts by attempting to construct an operational definition of a world-class university. Then, it outlines the features of world-class university, the requirements for transformation into world-class universities, the challenges involved in achieving world-class universities, and the key problems and challenges of the Egyptian higher education system. Finally, the selected statistical population of the research include higher education experts [N=57]. Thus, a mix method of using a questionnaire and conducting interviews were used. The research questions are: 1- What does it mean for a university to be a world-class university? 2-What are the essential features and characteristics of a world-class university? 3-How does the ecosystem influence the performance of universities? 4-What are the present performance, problems, and challenges of the Egyptian higher education system? 5-What are the higher education reform initiatives in Egypt? 6-What are the requirements that could upgrade public Egyptian universities to world-class universities? 7- What are the existing challenges of developing world-class universities? 8-What strategic alternatives have been developed for transforming public Egyptian universities to world-class universities? Therefore, one-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test was used to analyze the data. In addition, the result obtained in the study shows the use of collaborative strategic alternative rather than to upgrade the present Public universities, or create or merge them together

Flipped Learning As A New Educational Paradigm: An Analytical Critical Study

A literature on the flipped learning model has been reviewed. Therefore, the new form of education is worthy enough to be further studied. It is believed that flipped learning has gained great attention of many researchers as a result of what educators are implementing at their classrooms. The main objective of the paper is proposing an educational analytical critical framework for flipped learning that has powerful effects for who are concerned with educational development. The broad groundwork of literature on the flipped learning, described as the inverted learning, provided a foundation for the present study. This groundwork of literature used the term flipped learning and examined its effects on the pedagogy in education. The educational analytical critical framework of flipped learning developed in this paper includes components that reveals different views of flipped learning from just a “fashion” of adding more mechanism to the classroom to it is as a tool for shifting present pedagogy customized according to the individual needs of the learners instead of the whole group. The components of the framework are: instructional foundations, learning theories, Bloom’s taxonomy, and conceptual framework of the flipped education that is discussed in the light of its connection to the educational foundations of flipped learning. Research method used was descriptive method and method of philosophical analysis

A Suggested Strategic Roadmap for Public Egyptian Universities to Adopt and Adapt to the Requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Society 5.0 to Prepare Students for the Future Labor Market

Currently, the world is facing an unprecedented challenge which is “youth bulge” with a high rate of unemployment. It is argued that the employability challenges will be compounded by the impacts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and Society 5.0, and “Open talent economy” is the new economy replacing traditional permanent employees with talented “free lancers” to perform the required work from anywhere in the world. Currently, institutions around the world prefer to employ those who have skills for specific projects. Gig economy primarily depends on two forms of work: “crowd work” and “work on-demand”. In addition, in the last five years, "artificial intelligence" (AI) has begun to replace people in many of routine jobs, and will continue to replace people in new unimaginable jobs that may arise in the future due to the continuous developments of smart technologies. Accordingly, universities all over the world will face a new problem of preparing students for a new way of life and work with a somewhat uncertain future in the coming era that involves a new industrial revolution whose repercussions are unprecedented.Accordingly, there is increasing trend that calls for the necessity of preparing a flexible or liquid workforce able to constantly adapt itself to the requirements of fast-changing labor market, and establishing a culture of flexibility in moving between businesses according to the needs of the labor market which witnessed the emergence of new types of labor across the world. If universities failed to align employability competences with the requirements of 4IR and Society 5.0, the unemployment gap will increase. Thus, the main objective of this study is to propose a strategic roadmap for public Egyptian universities to adopt and adapt to the requirements of the fourth industrial revolution and society 5.0 to prepare students for the future labor market. To achieve this objective, the author adopted both descriptive and exploratory research design, and used mixed methods research approach. Since the requirements of 4IR and Society 5.0 and Gig economy do not depend on national educational institutions that operate in accordance with national standards, but reliance is on the standards set by transnational "digital institutions" and platform companies, so the national contexts will have minor influence on practices and structure of university education systems, therefore the suggested strategic proposal may be applied by many universities in different educational contexts. Keywords: The Fourth Industrial Revolution; Society 5.0; Strategic Roadmap; Education 4.0; Work 4.0; Egyptian Universities; Gig economy. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-29-03 Publication date:October 31st 202

TOWARDS AUTOMATING POLICY- BASED MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

The goal of distributed systems management is to provide reliable, secure and efficient utilization of the network, processors and devices that comprise those systems. The management system makes use of management agents to collect events and data from managed objects while policies provide information on how to modify the behaviour of a managed system. Systems as well as policies governing the behaviour of the system and its constituents can change dynamically. The aim of this work is to provide the services and algorithms needed to automatically identify and deploy management entities and be able to respond automatically to both changes to the system itself as well as to changes in the way the system is to be managed, i.e., changes to the set of management policies or sets of management agents. One significant challenge in the use of policy-based management systems is finding efficient mechanisms to address and simplify the gap between expressing and specifying policies and an actual configuration of a management system that realizes and makes use of policies. Little work has been done to define how the monitoring operations are to be configured and updated according to the policies. This Thesis proposes a general architecture for a policy-based management system for distributed systems which allows for expressing and automating the deployment of a wide range of management policies. The proposed solution is based on the matching between the management operations that are carried out by the management agents and the policies. The matching process relies on the attributes that the agents can monitor and the extracted attributes from the components of the policies. One major contribution of this Thesis is to build the policy model and services on existing management services found in commercial management systems. The work of this Thesis also focuses in finding87 strategies for selecting and configuring agents to be used to keep the time of a policy deployment low. The Thesis introduces the Policy-Management Agent Integrated Console (PMagic) prototype. The PMagic prototype has been implemented to provide a practical validation of the policy based management system model proposed. The approach, architecture and prototype have demonstrated that it is possible to create a more autonomic management system, particularly one that can instantiate agents to react to changes in sets of policies

Strategic Approach for Developing World-Class Universities in Egypt

In the past decade, the term “world-class university” “WCU” - also called “globally competitive universities”, “world-class”, “elite”, or “flagship” universities- has become a catch phrase, not simply for improving the quality of learning and research in higher education but also, more important, for developing the capacity to compete in the global higher education marketplace through the acquisition and creation of advanced knowledge. The main objectives of   paper is to propose a strategic approach for developing world-class universities in  Egypt, to achieve this objective the paper starts by attempting to construct an operational definition of a world class university. It then outlines the features of world class University, the requirements of the transformation into a world-class universities, the challenges involved in achieving world class universities, and the key problems and challenges of the Egyptian higher education system. Finally. The selected statistical population of the research are Higher Education experts [N=57], and a mix methods of conducting a questionnaire and interviews are used. The research questions are: 1- What does it mean to be a world-class university? 2-What are the essential features and characteristics of world-class university?3-How does the ecosystem influence the performance of universities?4-What are the present performance, problems and challenges of the Egyptian higher education system ? 5-What are the higher education reform initiatives in Egypt? 6-What are the requirements that could upgrade public Egyptian universities to world class universities? 7- What are the existing challenges of developing world-class universities?8-What Strategic approach is developed for Egypt to develop its world-class universities ? One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test is used to analyze the data. Results: The result obtained in the study is to use the collaborative approach rather than to upgrade the present universities or create or merge. Key words: World-class universities, global university rankings, higher education, Egypt

A Proposed Systematic Framework for Applying Hoshin Kanri Strategic Planning Methodology in Educational Institutions

Hoshin Kanri is a methodology that was developed in Japan in the late 1960s. Now, it has become an essential component in numerous institutions that are implementing new management systems and concepts such as Balanced Scorecard (BSC), TQM, and Lean Management or Six Sigma. Hoshin Kanri is a management method used for reinforcing strategic work. In spite of a number of Hoshin Kanri success stories in many sectors and a variety of institutions, little research attention has been given to the implementation of Hoshin Kanri methodology in educational institutions. This research supports an increased focus on Hoshin Kanri methodology in Strategic Planning for educational institutions. The main aim of this paper is to propose a systematic framework for applying Hoshin Kanri strategic planning methodology in educational institutions. In achieving this aim, the meaning and origins of Hoshin Kanri were defined, the foundations of Hoshin Kanri planning methodology were analyzed, the factors influencing the implementation of Hoshin Kanri planning in educational institutions were discussed, and a structured process for implementing Hoshin Kanri planning in educational institutions was developed

An Iterative Method for Solving Quadratic Optimal Control Problem Using Scaling Boubaker Polynomials

  Abstract     In this paper, an iteration method was used for solving a quadratic optimal control problem (QOCP) by the aid of state parameterization technique and scaling Boubaker polynomials. Some numerical examples were added to show the applicability of the method, also a comparison with other method was presented. The process steps were illustrated by some numerical examples with graphs done by Matlab