Development of a GIS Database for Water Resources Management in Ajman Emirate, UAE.

The lack of freshwater resources represents a major constraint against the sustainable development in arid and semi-arid regions. Because of the scarcity and randomness nature of rainfall in arid regions, surface water resources are almost absent. Groundwater resources are always under stress and in many cases do not suffice the water demands for different sectors. Desalination plants are widely constructed to substitute for the water shortage. The UAE, including Ajman emirate, is witnessing a rapid development in the industrial, commercial, construction and agricultural fields which has led to a tremendous increase in water demands. Proper management of the limited water resources in UAE requires a comprehensive knowledge on water resources availability and potentials. Data related to water resources are numerous and diverse and are generally not preserved in a digital form. Therefore, retrieval of data may require excessive effort and time in such a way that hinders the decision makers to take the proper actions. No effort has been made, so far, to review, assess and analyze the available data related to water resources in Ajman emirate. Efficient and integrated management of the available water resources in Ajman require availability of huge data. Such data include, among others, water demand and water supply patterns in the emirate, distribution of water demands among various consumption sectors, geometric, hydrological and hydrogeological characteristics of the aquifer systems, groundwater levels and quality, pumping rates, location of pumping and observation wells, and others. Such diverse data and information can only be managed and analyzed through Geographical Information Systems (GIS) databases. The thesis demonstrates the development of the GIS database of Ajman emirate. Well fields, groundwater levels and quality, geological and hydrogeological information, aquifer parameters, rainfall records, groundwater quality data, pipelines, and other related data were mapped to recent remote sensing images. The obtained GIS maps provide a good support to decision makers in the area of water resources management and sustainability in Ajman emirate. The ultimate aim, which can be fully achieved in future studies, is to integrate the Ajman water resources GIS database into other related databases in the country. The results of the current study can serve as a model for the development of water resources databases in the other emirates. The importance of water resources in the sustainable development in Ajman emirate and UAE cannot be over emphasized. The results of the study are expected to have a direct and significant impact on the water resources management in Ajman. These results will help professionals and researchers to conduct advanced research to assess, develop, protect and sustain the available water resources in Ajman. The GIS database will provide the needed support for decision making process. The developed GIS database of water resources in Ajman might be regarded as a model to GIS databases in the other emirates. Water resources databases in the different emirates can then be integrated to develop a national database

Online purchase behaviour among professionals: a socio-demographic perspective for Turkey

This study reports the findings of a survey concerning the impact of professionals’ selected socio-demographic factors with regard to their online purchasing behaviour in Turkey, since this consumer group plays an important role in adopting new technologies in societies. The survey has been conducted using a ‘face-to-face interview’ approach during an IT event. To keep in line with the available literature, gender, age, education level, income and daily Internet usage, constitute the sociodemographic variants for this study. Five hypotheses were constructed to investigate the nature of the relationship between the socio-demographic factors and the usage of online purchasing. The chi-square method was selected to test the hypotheses. According to the test results, age, income and education level have a significant impact on the online purchasing behaviour of professionals

Examination of factors influencing employees’ adoption of mobile commerce and services in Turkey

This study first reviews and discusses mobile technology issues from a global perspective, and then investigates the impact of demographic (gender, age, income), personal (ICT experience, work experience), and organisational (sector) factors related to employees on adopting mobile commerce (m-commerce) and mobile services (m-services). A survey is conducted among employees from government- and private-sector organisations for this purpose, assuming that this group plays an important role in helping to adopt new technologies in societies. Based on this survey, the results indicate that gender, experience, and sector have an impact on attitude towards using m-technologies and that such attitude has a significant effect on the actual use of m-technologies

Where is My Next Hop ? The Case of Indian Ocean Islands

Internet has become a foundation of our modern society. However, all regions or countries do not have the same Internet access regarding quality especially in the Indian Ocean Area (IOA). To improve this quality it is important to have a deep knowledge of the Internet physical and logical topology and associated performance. However, these knowledges are not shared by Internet service providers. In this paper, we describe a large scale measurement study in which we deploy probes in different IOA countries, we generate network traces, develop a tool to extract useful information and analyze these information. We show that most of the IOA traffic exits through one point even if there exists multiple exit points

Recent Trends in Gasification Based Waste-to-Energy

Addressing the contemporary waste management is seeing a shift towards energy production while managing waste sustainably. Consequently, waste treatment through gasification is slowly taking over the waste incineration with multiple benefits, including simultaneous waste management and energy production while reducing landfill volumes and displacing conventional fossil fuels. Only in the UK, there are around 14 commercial plants built to operate on gasification technology. These include fixed bed and fluidized bed gasification reactors. Ultra-clean tar free gasification of waste is now the best available technique and has experienced a significant shift from two-stage gasification and combustion towards a one-stage system for gasification and syngas cleaning. Nowadays in gasification sector, more companies are developing commercial plants with tar cracking and syngas cleaning. Moreover, gasification can be a practical scheme when applying ultra-clean syngas for a gas turbine with heat recovery by steam cycle for district heating and cooling (DHC) systems. This chapter aims to examine the recent trends in gasification-based waste-to-energy technologies. Furthermore, types of gasification technologies, their challenges and future perspectives in various applications are highlighted in detail

Hvordan blir den norske arbeidsorganiseringen ivaretatt når norske bedrifter etableres i et land med annerledes kultur : studie av Jotun i Indonesia

Masteroppgave i Industriell økonomi og informasjonsledelse, Høgskolen i Agder, GrimstadJeg har i denne oppgaven forklart hvordan den norske modellen blir i ivaretatt i et land med et annet kultur ved å se på Jotuns virksomhet i Indonesia. Jotun er et norsk pulver og maleri firma. Dette er forklart i lys av Hofstedes Culture Consequenses teori, organisasjons- og nasjonale kulturen, den norske modellen og ledelsesteori. Den norske modellen er i hovedsak kjent som en velfungerende og demokratisk styrt velferdsstat med sterk medvirkning fra godt organiserte parter i arbeidslivet. Jeg har forklart dette ved å gjøre studie av Jotun i Indonesia, dermed viser den ikke helhets bilde av norske bedrifter i Indonesia. Jeg hadde ikke tid og råd til å finne andre bedrifter, derfor er denne masteroppgaven begrenset til å vise en bedrift, som har erfaring med etableringer i utlandet, med norske ledere. Grunnen til jeg valgte denne bedriften var fordi Jotun har over 40 års erfaring med internasjonalisering og har hatt alltid hatt suksess med sine etableringer i utlandet. Jotun Indonesia har et global organisasjonskultur der de opptrer etter sine verdier og forretningsprinsipper. Jotun gjør forretninger tilpasset etter lokale forhold samtidig som de ivaretar sin organisasjonskultur. Deres organisasjonskultur reflekterer på mange måter den norske modellen. Det er ikke lett å tilpasse seg et helt annerledes kultur der arbeidslivet er det motsatte til den demokratiske stilen i Norge. Jotun er fra Norge noe som er grunnen til Jotun har suksess i utlandet

Meconium stained liquor and its neonatal outcome

Objective: To determine the maternal factors and neonatal outcome of pregnancy complicated by meconium stained amniotic fluid. Methods: This one year retrospective study was conducted at the Agha Khan Hospital for Women-Garden Campus, it is a secondary care private teaching hospital. Demographics information included gestational age, gender and birth weight of baby, medical and obstetric complications during pregnancy, mode of delivery, neonatal outcome (Meconium Aspiration Syndrome (MAS) and need for admission in nursery) were recorded on a pre-designed proforma. Results: In our study the frequency of meconium stained amniotic fluid (MSAF) was 7.85%, out of them 12 % babies developed MAS. There was significant association between grades of meconium and MAS, babies with thick meconium were prone to develop MAS (P = 0.02). Emergency cesarean section was significantly associated with MAS. Gestational diabetes (GDM) and pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH) were the significant factors associated with MAS. Conclusion: Thick Meconium stained amniotic fluid was associated with low APGAR score, high rate of emergency cesarean section and meconium aspiration syndrome. Anemia during pregnancy, PIH and GDM were important risk factor associated with MAS

Social Media Big Data Analytics for Demand Forecasting: Development and Case Implementation of an Innovative Framework

Social media big data offers insights that can be used to make predictions of products' future demand and add value to the supply chain performance. The paper presents a framework for improvement of demand forecasting in a supply chain using social media data from Twitter and Facebook. The proposed framework uses sentiment, trend, and word analysis results from social media big data in an extended Bass emotion model along with predictive modelling on historical sales data to predict product demand. The forecasting framework is validated through a case study in a retail supply chain. It is concluded that the proposed framework for forecasting has a positive effect on improving accuracy of demand forecasting in a supply chain