Human Resource Management And The Performance Of Selected Small And Medium Manufacturing Enterprises

Despite many studies on human resource management can be found in the literature, until recently, studies on the moderating effects of this factor on the relationship between innovation and firm performance are hardly existent. In filling the literature gap, this study attempts to address the questions of how HRM practices and its interactions with innovation affect the performance of SMEs. Two hundred eighty-four samples were obtained from the food and beverage, textile and clothing and wood-based small and medium manufacturing enterprises in Malaysia. Using the multiple regression analysis, this study found that human resource management practices in terms of employee and employer’s trainings interacted with innovation and significantly affected the performance of SMEs. Keywords: Human Resource Management, Innovation, Firm Performance, Malaysi

Compressibility and Permeability of Solidified Dredged Marine Soils (DMS) with the Addition of Cement and/or Waste Granular Materials (WGM)

Dredged marine soils that obtained from dredging work were characterize as geo-waste, which is prone to be dumped rather than to be reused. This type of soil is high in compressibility and low in load bearing capacity. The engineering properties of this soft soil can be improve via soil solidification method. Cement is the common hydraulic binder used in soil solidification, were found to generate the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHG), particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) which also had affected the earth’s atmosphere. Therefore, there has been an increasing interest in using alternate pozzolanic materials such as waste granular materials (WGM) to fully or partially substituted the use of cement in soil solidification. WGM such as coal bottom ash (BA) and palm oil clinker (POC) were opted due to its pozzolanic properties. Prior to the planning of reclamation work using DMS admixed with conventional and/or alternate pozzolanic materials, the consolidation characteristics of the admixed materials must be acknowledged. Hence, the present study will examine the amount of settlement and coefficient of permeability (k) of DMS treated with cement and/or WGM in laboratory-scale experiments. Samples were prepared in various proportion in order to examine the individual effect of the cement and/or alternate pozzolanic materials on compressibility and permeability. For cement-admixed DMS, sample with 20 % of cement have significantly reduced the settlement than untreated and 10 % cemented DMS. For WGM-admixed DMS, the initial void ratio is low as compared to the untreated DMS due to the rearrangement of soil particles, which is densely packed. For cement-WGM-admixed DMS, samples of 15C50BA and 15C50POC displayed significant settlement reduction than 10C100BA, 10C100POC and untreated samples

Are the neighborhood commercial areas of Iskandar Malaysia centrally located for low carbon travel?

Recent developments in Malaysia show that the amount of CO2 increases every year which is mainly contributed by transportation sectors (World Bank, 2008). The amount of travel-induced carbon emission can be reduced by minimizing unnecessary extra travel coverage that can result from inefficient location of oft-frequented places such as the commercial centres. Thus, this paper discusses on the centrality assessment of the commercial areas within selected neighborhoods in Iskandar Malaysia. It looks at the distribution of commercial areas within the neighborhoods and evaluating the centrality of street networks in relation to these commercial areas. The selected neighborhoods are representative of existing neighborhoods within Iskandar Malaysia built across five decades from 1970s to 2010s. According to Bevelas (1948), centrality in communication network is basically represented by a point to some extend that the point has the shortest path to the other point that is in the network. Centrality measures indicate that some of the nodes contained in an urban network are more significant especially the nodes that are located at the center of the network rather than the rest (Porta, Crucitti and Latora, 2006)

pp-Process simulations with a modified reaction library

We have performed $p$-process simulations with the most recent stellar $(n,\gamma)$ cross sections from the "Karlsruhe Astrophysical Database of Nucleosynthesis in Stars" project (version v0.2, http://nuclear-astrophysics.fzk.de/kadonis). The simulations were carried out with a parametrized supernova type II shock front model (``$\gamma$ process'') of a 25 solar mass star and compared to recently published results. A decrease in the normalized overproduction factor could be attributed to lower cross sections of a significant fraction of seed nuclei located in the Bi and Pb region around the $N$=126 shell closure.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure Proceedings "Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics NPA-III", Dresden/Germany (2007

The effect of long-term high-fibre diets in diabetic outpatients

Diets containing large amounts of dietary fibre have been shown to be beneficial in improving diabetic control. We -investigated the practical aspects of administering a high-fibre diet to diabetic outpatients in Cape Town, using readily available, lowcost foodstuffs with a high dietary fibre content. Ten patients were followed up over a period of 9 months, for 3 months of which a high-fibre diet was prescribed. Although only 3 patients approached the projected dietary fibre intake, significant negative correlations were found between the mean plasma glucose changes and the dietary fibre increments (r = -0,704; P < 0,05) and between the mean serum triglyceride changes and the dietary fibre increments (r =-0,741; P < 0,05). These findings suggest that, were it not for poor dietary compliance, a high-fibre diet might result in significant improvement in diabetic control, and that education and motivation are of prime importance when making major changes to patients eating habits

Analisis Kepuasan Mahasiswa terhadap Kualitas Pelayanan dengan Metode Fuzzy Service Quality (Studi Kasus di Jurusan Matematika Fmipa Usu)

Pendidikan sangat penting dan telah menjadi kebutuhan bagi setiaporang. Itulah sebabnya banyak orang melanjutkan pendidikan ke jenjang yang lebihtinggi. Perguruan tinggi merupakan pendidikan tinggi yang mempersiapkan danmemperlengkapi mahasiswa untuk mengembangkan potensi diri sehingga menjadimanusia yang terampil. Setiap mahasiswa tentunya ingin mendapatkan pelayananpendidikan yang baik dan optimal. Oleh karena itu, perlu dilakukan pengukuranuntuk mengetahui puas atau tidaknya mahasiswa terhadap layanan pendidikanyang diberikan oleh pihak universitas. Dalam penelitian ini, metode yang digunakandalam mengukur tingkat kepuasan pelayanan adalah metode Fuzzy ServiceQuality yakni untuk mengetahui gap yang terjadi antara layanan yang diterimadan harapan mahasiswa. Hal ini sangat perlu diperhatikan untuk meningkatkankinerja pelayanan pendidikan di masa yang akan datang. Dari hasil pengolahandata, diperoleh bahwa atribut layanan yang menjadi perhatian utama untuk diperbaikidan ditingkatkan kualitasnya yaitu pegawai melayani keperluan mahasiswadengan ramah dan sopan dengan gap (-0,554), semua administrasi dilayani ataudikerjakan dengan cepat dan tepat dengan gap (-0,546), ketersediaan pihak jurusandalam merespon dan menanggapi keluhan mahasiswa dengan gap (-0,504), Kenyamananruangan kuliah dengan gap (-0,501), kesabaran pihak jurusan menerimakeluhan dengan gap (-0,483), kondisi dan kelengkapan komputer di laboratoriumdengan gap (-0,461).Received dd-mm-yyyy, Accepted dd-mm-yyyy.2013 MathematicsSubjectClassification: 94D0

Compressibility and permeability of solidified dredged marine soils (DMS) with the addition of cement andor waste granular materials (WGM)

Dredged marine soils that obtained from dredging work were characterize as geo-waste, which is prone to be dumped rather than to be reused. This type of soil is high in compressibility and low in load bearing capacity. The engineering properties of this soft soil can be improve via soil solidification method. Cement is the common hydraulic binder used in soil solidification, were found to generate the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHG), particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) which also had affected the earth’s atmosphere. Therefore, there has been an increasing interest in using alternate pozzolanic materials such as waste granular materials (WGM) to fully or partially substituted the use of cement in soil solidification. WGM such as coal bottom ash (BA) and palm oil clinker (POC) were opted due to its pozzolanic properties. Prior to the planning of reclamation work using DMS admixed with conventional and/or alternate pozzolanic materials, the consolidation characteristics of the admixed materials must be acknowledged. Hence, the present study will examine the amount of settlement and coefficient of permeability (k) of DMS treated with cement and/or WGM in laboratory-scale experiments. Samples were prepared in various proportion in order to examine the individual effect of the cement and/or alternate pozzolanic materials on compressibility and permeability. For cement-admixed DMS, sample with 20 % of cement have significantly reduced the settlement than untreated and 10 % cemented DMS. For WGM-admixed DMS, the initial void ratio is low as compared to the untreated DMS due to the rearrangement of soil particles, which is densely packed. For cement-WGM-admixed DMS, samples of 15C50BA and 15C50POC displayed significant settlement reduction than 10C100BA, 10C100POC and untreated samples