THE EFFECTS OF BALANCED SCORECARD IMPLEMENTATION ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: THE CASE OF THE HEALTHCARE SECTOR IN THE UAE

The aim of this study is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) that positively affect balanced scorecard (BSC) implementation in the healthcare sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to examine the impact of BSC implementation on organizational performance. The BSC theory has been applied in various industries, including manufacturing, the public sector, banking and insurance, hospitality, and healthcare. However, little knowledge has been revealed about its design and implementation in healthcare organizations. In addition, no published articles exist on BSC implementation in the context of the healthcare industry in the UAE, which shows a clear gap when it comes to using of the integrative theories framework of the BSC in healthcare. The healthcare sector is very important for leaders and key decision-makers in the UAE, so it seems pertinent to identify the CSFs for BSC implementation in this sector. A conceptual framework is proposed to explain the impact of 13 CSFs on BSC implementation to strive for high-performance organizational practice. The proposed conceptual model is tested using a quantitative approach through a survey questionnaire distributed to 73 private hospitals in the UAE. The hospitals’ top management involved in BSC implementation were approached to complete the study and the final sample size comprises 140 people. This gives a response rate of 81.5%, which is very high due to the researcher’s strong connections in the healthcare industry. A partial least squares method is used to fit the conceptual model and test the research’s goodness of fit by assessing the validity and reliability of the scales used. Bootstrap tests are applied to determine the significance of the relationships between the latent variables that represent CSFs, successful implementation of the BSC and organizational performance. The results show strong statistical evidence that CSFs influence the effectiveness of BSC implementation, which also significantly impacts organizational performance. The research findings recommend BSC as an effective tool for managers in the hospitality sector to achieve high organizational performance

金属中の電子の3次元運動量空間密度と電子的性質の関連

Our goal in the present work is to study the momentum space density and Fermi surface on certain materials of interest using 2D-ACAR experiment. These materials are the divalent HCP structure metals Mg, Zn and Cd, the HCP structure metals of group IIIA Sc and Y, the HCP structure metals of group IVA Ti, Zr and Hf, FCC structure metals of group VIII Rh and Ir, the non-cuprate layered proveskite superconductor Sr2RuO4, and the layered dichalcogenides of group VB NbSe2. The measurements have been carried out using two experimental set-ups. In the first, a pair of 128 detectors has been used to construct the data covering 20 mrad × 20 mrad. In the second, a pair of 256 detectors has been used to construct the data covering 30 mrad × 30 mrad. From the measured 2D-ACAR spectra the three dimensional electron density in the momentum space p(P) has been reconstructed using the reconstruction technique based on Fourier transform. Some observations have been noticed from the reconstructed spectra. Firstly, the divalent HCP structure metals show distortions in upper part of their spectra. Those distortions have been observed and discussed in terms of Kahana-like enhancement and many body effects. Secondly, the metals of groups IIIA and IVA show Breaks in their spectra. Those breaks have been studied and interpreted in terms of the electronic configurations of the examined metals. Thirdly, the high momentum components (HMC\u27s) have been observed in the spectra of the used elements. They are attributed to the Umklapp process. Fourthly, the effect of the strong signal d-like in the Fermi surface features in the elements of groups IIIA, IVA and VIII has been observed and discussed. Finally, in Ir spectra broadening has been observed and discussed in terms of its high absorption of γ-rays. The electron density in the wave vector space n(k) has been constructed, restricted within first Brillouin zone, using Locks, Crisp and West (LCW) folding procedure. Then, Fermi surfaces of the metals under investigations have been constructed. Moreover, the least square fitting method has been applied in the experimental results with respect to the theoretical ones to estimate the band\u27s occupation. The results of Fermi surface for each group of materials will discuss below. Fermi surfaces of divalent HCP structure metals have been compared with (he free electron model and with that obtained from band structure calculation using linear muffin tin orbital (LMTO) and augmented plane wave method (APW) methods. They show agreement with that obtained from the free electron model. The absence of some sheets from the Fermi surface of Mg, Zn and Cd has been interpreted in terms of the experimental resolution. Fermi surfaces of the metals of group IIIA have been compared with the free electron model and with the band structure calculation using cellular and APW methods. And the Fermi surfaces of the metals of group IVA have been compared with the free electron model, and the band structures calculation using APW and linear combination of atomic orbital (LCAO) methods. The Fermi surfaces of Sc, Y, Ti and Zr show agreement with that obtained from APW method, while the Fermi surface of Hf shows agreement with that obtained from relativistic RAPW method. Fermi surfaces of Rh and Ir have been compared with the RAPW and LCAO methods. These Fermi surfaces show good agreement with the band structure calculation using RAPW method. Fermi surface of Sr2RuO4 has been obtained and compared with that calculated using the local-density approximation (LDA) method. The present results show good agreement with the band structure calculation. Fermi surface of NbSe2 has been compared with the band structure calculation using APW method. The difference of the dimension of the hole surface around Γ-A axis in the Fermi surface of NbSe2 has been explained in terms of the non uniformity of the positron wave function. The deviations of the Fermi surface dimensions from that obtained by the band structure calculation have been explained in terms of the present experimental resolution. As regards, while the divalent HCP structure metals show good agreement with the free electron model, deviation from it obtains for the other elements.Thesis (Ph. D. in Engineering)--University of Tsukuba, (A), no. 2101, 1999.3.2

Tafsiri Baina ya Kiswhaili na Kiarabu Nchini Misri

In Egypt, Swahili has a prominent role as it is used in teaching, religious activities and journalism related with East African Countries. This is a sign of the good relations between Egypt and East African areas where Swahili is used. These relations are also based on the religion of Islam. Translations from Swahili into Arabic and vice versa play a special role in the cultural exchange between Egypt and Swahiliphone East Africa. Two Egyptian institutions are especially active in translation, the university of Al-Azhar and the National Centre for Translation. This article gives an overview of translation activities in Egypt and discusses their opportunities and challenges

Hali ya Ufundishaji wa Kiswahili Nchini Misri Historia na Maendeleo

This article discuss the uses and teaching of the Swahili language in Egypt. Today, the North African country considers Swahili language to be one of the most important languages in Africa; which is used as a lingua franca even by fellow Nile River countries. There is a relatively long history of Swahili language teaching; beginning in 1967 with the establishment of the Department of African Languages, within the Faculty of Languages and Translation at the Al-Azhar University. Since then, many students have learned Swahili and become either Swahili teachers; editors in Egyptian Radio for East African countries; or Swahili language translators at Al-Azhar centres. The establishment of other departments at three other universities - namely, Ain Shams University, Cairo University, and most recently Aswan University - has helped to grow and develop Swahili language teaching. Egypt continues to take steps to advance the teaching and use of Swahili language with the aim of strengthening relations between it and several East and Central African countries, where it remains the main language of communication

Modified Canny Detector-based Active Contour for Segmentation

In the present work, an integrated modified canny detector and an active contour were proposed for automated medical image segmentation. Since the traditional canny detector (TCD) detects only the edge’s pixels, which are insufficient for labelling the image, a shape feature was extracted to select the initial region of interest ‘IROI’ as an initial mask for the active contour without edge (ACWE), using a proposed modified canny detector (MCD). This procedure overcomes the drawback of the manual initialization of the mask location and shape in the traditional ACWE, which is sensitive to the shape of region of region of interest (ROI). The proposed method solves this problem by selecting the initial location and shape of the IROI using the MCD. Also, a post-processing stage was applied for more cleaning and smoothing the ROI. A practical computational time is achieved as the proposed system requires less than 5 minutes, which is significantly less than the required time using the traditional ACWE. The results proved the ability of the proposed method for medical image segmentation with average dice 87.54%

Modified Canny Detector-based Active Contour for Segmentation

In the present work, an integrated modified canny detector and an active contour were proposed for automated medical image segmentation. Since the traditional canny detector (TCD) detects only the edge’s pixels, which are insufficient for labelling the image, a shape feature was extracted to select the initial region of interest ‘IROI’ as an initial mask for the active contour without edge (ACWE), using a proposed modified canny detector (MCD). This procedure overcomes the drawback of the manual initialization of the mask location and shape in the traditional ACWE, which is sensitive to the shape of region of region of interest (ROI). The proposed method solves this problem by selecting the initial location and shape of the IROI using the MCD. Also, a post-processing stage was applied for more cleaning and smoothing the ROI. A practical computational time is achieved as the proposed system requires less than 5 minutes, which is significantly less than the required time using the traditional ACWE. The results proved the ability of the proposed method for medical image segmentation with average dice 87.54%

Water use efficiency of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) under different irrigation methods and potassium fertilizer rates

AbstractThis study was conducted to determine the effect of different irrigation methods and potassium fertilizers on potato yield in the Abu–Graib–Baghdad, Iraq Region, during season 2011–2012. Potato was grown under furrow and drip irrigation methods and three potassium fertilizers rates applied with 0.0, 300 and 600kg K2SO4ha−1. The obtained results indicated that, actual potato evapotranspiration ranged from 357.3 to 511.4mm in the growth season for all treatments. Furrow and drip irrigation methods had no significant effect on tuber yield under the experiential conditions. Potassium fertilizer influenced the tuber yield (P<0.05), and the highest tuber yield was registered for 600kg K2SO4ha−1, reaching 35.23Tha−1and 36.65Tha−1for furrow and drip irrigation, respectively. Water use efficiency increased from 5.129 to 7.379kgm−3 for furrow-irrigated treatments, and from 6.907 to 10.257kgm−3 for drip-irrigated treatments using the above mentioned rate of K-fertilizer

Predicting Student Performance in Higher Education Institutions Using Decision Tree Analysis

The overall success of educational institutions can be measured by the success of its students. Providing factors that increase success rate and reduce the failure of students is profoundly helpful to educational organizations. Data mining is the best solution to finding hidden patterns and giving suggestions that enhance the performance of students. This paper presents a model based on decision tree algorithms and suggests the best algorithm based on performance. Three built classifiers (J48, Random Tree and REPTree) were used in this model with the questionnaires filled in by students. The survey consists of 60 questions that cover the fields, such as health, social activity, relationships, and academic performance, most related to and affect the performance of students. A total of 161 questionnaires were collected. The Weka 3.8 tool was used to construct this model. Finally, the J48 algorithm was considered as the best algorithm based on its performance compared with the Random Tree and RepTree algorithms

Hybrid information security system via combination of compression, cryptography, and image steganography

Today, the world is experiencing a new paradigm characterized by dynamism and rapid change due to revolutions that have gone through information and digital communication technologies, this raised many security and capacity concerns about information security transmitted via the Internet network. Cryptography and steganography are two of the most extensively that are used to ensure information security. Those techniques alone are not suitable for high security of information, so in this paper, we proposed a new system was proposed of hiding information within the image to optimize security and capacity. This system provides a sequence of steps by compressing the secret image using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) algorithm, then using the advanced encryption standard (AES) algorithm for encryption compressed data. The least significant bit (LSB) technique has been applied to hide the encrypted data. The results show that the proposed system is able to optimize the stego-image quality (PSNR value of 47.8 dB) and structural similarity index (SSIM value of 0.92). In addition, the results of the experiment proved that the combination of techniques maintains stego-image quality by 68%, improves system performance by 44%, and increases the size of secret data compared to using each technique alone. This study may contribute to solving the problem of the security and capacity of information when sent over the internet

A REVIEW ON INTERNET OF THINGS ARCHITECTURE FOR BIG DATA PROCESSING

The importance of big data implementations is increased due to large amount of gathered data via the online gates. The businesses and organizations would benefit from the big data analysis i.e. analyze the political, market, and social interests of the people. The Internet of Things (IoT) presents many facilities that support the big data transfer between various Internet objects. The integration between the big data and IoT offer a lot of implementations in the daily life like GPS, Satellites, and airplanes tracking. There are many challenges face the integration between big data transfer and IoT technology. The main challenges are the transfer architecture, transfer protocols, and the transfer security. The main aim of this paper is to review the useful architecture of IoT for the purpose of big data processing with the consideration of the various requirements such as the transfer protocol. This paper also reviews other important issues such as the security requirements and the multiple IoT applications. In addition, the future directions of the IoT-Big data are explained in this paper