The Adoption of e-commerce in SMEs: An Empirical Investigation in Egypt

The Adoption of E-commerce in SMEs: An Empirical Investigation in Egypt It is recognised widely that e-commerce can offer substantial opportunities for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) to compete in the global market. In developing countries, e-commerce opportunities can be a meaningful approach for SMEs to be able to compete with large businesses and to access, with lowest possible costs, international markets. However, the current situation shows that SMEs continue to lag behind in maximising their capabilities in taking these chances. Universally, they are reported to be slow adopters of new technologies as a result of limited financial resources and lack of expertise. The importance, of SMEs, emerged from their positions since they contributed more than 90% to many developed or developing countries’ economies and they were considered to be the backbone of any economy. Hence, the main purpose, of conducting this research, was to increase the body of knowledge about the process of the adoption of e-commerce. This was done by a primary empirical focus on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Egypt. SMEs represented about 90% of all Egyptian businesses (ITP, 2012). This study aimed to investigate the factors which could influence the SMEs’ adoption of e-commerce. In order to accomplish this objective, the researcher investigated the previous studies, on the same approach, in order to identify the gap, within the literature, regarding the adoption of e-commerce amongst SMEs. Additionally, the researcher integrated existing theories on the adoption of innovation in order to develop a conceptual framework for the determinants of the adoption of e-commerce in the SMEs sector. The researcher reviewed the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI); Resource Based View of the Firm (RBV); Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) Model; and Technology Acceptance Models (TAM) to give constructive information about the firm and decision makers, within the firm, who were believed to have an impact on the adoption of innovation. 3 The proposed model was tested using quantitative research data. The data was collected by means of an online questionnaire survey and, subsequently, due to the high rate of non-respondents, changed to a face-to-face survey. A total of 130 usable responses were generated for purpose of analysis. The study contributed to the existing research by providing valuable information about the factors which influenced the SMEs’ adoption of e-commerce. As the results showed, there were 6 groups of factors which impacted mainly on the adoption processes. Namely, these were: Decision maker characteristics (education level, position within the firm, management support, management attitude); organisational characteristics (firm activity, firm size, firm’s assets/capital, firm age, employee’s IT knowledge, firm marketing capability); innovation characteristics (Perceived Relative Advantage); e-readiness (Individual and organisation e-readiness); government support; and barriers to e-commerce. This study’s findings offered important information for Egyptian government, policy makers and managerial participants; those were the people who encouraged the Egyptian SMEs to adopt e-commerce. These findings could be generalised to be applied to other countries with similar conditions to Egypt, as well as being applicable to Egyptian SMEs in other sectors

Lumped Parameter, State Variable Dynamic Models for U-tube Recirculation Type Nuclear Steam Generators

A number of lumped parameter dynamic models were developed for a vertical U-tube recirculation steam generator (UTSG) of the type used in most pressurized water reactor nuclear steam supply systems. The models ranged in complexity from a simplified model (Model A) with only three lumps to represent the primary fluid (reactor coolant), tube metal and the secondary fluid to a detailed model (Model D) with fourteen lumps and a moving boundary between the subcooled and boiling sections of the heat exchange region. The models are linear and are in the state variable form which is convenient for using standard general purpose computer codes for time or frequency domain analysis. The adequacy of the models was tested in several ways. The calculated response from the models was studied for physical plausibility. The adequacy of the analytical work was tested by comparing results from progressively more detailed models. The detailed model response was compared with the results of other UTSG dynamic models (6,32) and with test results obtained at the H. B. Robinson (739 MWe PWR) plant. (3,4,5) All of the checks on model validity demonstrated the adequacy of the lumped parameter approach for this simulation of the dynamic response of a UTSG for normal operating transients involving small deviations from the steady state conditions

A Study on Pyrolysis of Lignin over Mesoporous Materials

The aromatics have widespread uses across the chemical industries. Where, the monocyclic aromatics (e.g. BTX) and phenolics compounds are important basic raw materials for several industrial petrochemical processes such as synthetic polymers, detergents, biocides, resins, explosives, etc. Traditional production of these valuable chemicals has been dependent on fossil resources for more than half a century. So, it requires strategies for alternative chemical production from renewable sources especially from nonedible biomass. This chapter presents a review of the recent literature on the fast pyrolysis process for the production of aromatic hydrocarbons using mesoporous catalysts. We focus on the factors that can enhance the yield of aromatics and the lifetime of the catalyst used. Background information on catalyst deactivation during the pyrolysis process was described. The role of mesoporous catalyst’s acidity and textural and topological properties of lignin to aromatics conversion was also discussed in detail

Towards an Efficient Discovery of the Topological Representative Subgraphs

With the emergence of graph databases, the task of frequent subgraph discovery has been extensively addressed. Although the proposed approaches in the literature have made this task feasible, the number of discovered frequent subgraphs is still very high to be efficiently used in any further exploration. Feature selection for graph data is a way to reduce the high number of frequent subgraphs based on exact or approximate structural similarity. However, current structural similarity strategies are not efficient enough in many real-world applications, besides, the combinatorial nature of graphs makes it computationally very costly. In order to select a smaller yet structurally irredundant set of subgraphs, we propose a novel approach that mines the top-k topological representative subgraphs among the frequent ones. Our approach allows detecting hidden structural similarities that existing approaches are unable to detect such as the density or the diameter of the subgraph. In addition, it can be easily extended using any user defined structural or topological attributes depending on the sought properties. Empirical studies on real and synthetic graph datasets show that our approach is fast and scalable

Liberating nations from the debt burden

the paper outlines a plan to liberate all rich and poor nations form the debt burden, restructure the international monetary system and create the necessary conditions for sustainable global economic growth and developemt

Can America pay its public debt

The papers argues that the United States is unable to service its public debt without going deeper in debt, let alone repay it. the debt which has already exceede $15.3 trillion is expected to reach$20 trillion in 2015 and between $28 to$30 trillion in 2022

Can America pay its public debt

The papers argues that the United States is unable to service its public debt without going deeper in debt, let alone repay it. the debt which has already exceede $15.3 trillion is expected to reach$20 trillion in 2015 and between $28 to$30 trillion in 2022