Knowledge management processes and academic performance in Iraqi HEIs: An empirical investigation

This study examines the relationship between the processes of Knowledge Management (KM) and educational organization outcome in respect to academic performance. The study is based on a survey design and cross-sectional.The survey was conducted on 41 quality improvementadoption colleges in Iraqi higher-education institutions (HEIs).The study hypotheses were tested through correlation and regression analyses. The results supported the main hypotheses for the study, suggesting that Iraqi HEIs can benefit from KM processes. Pearson's correlation pointed out that all processes of KM have significant correlations with academic performance measures.Regression analysis showed significantly positive relationships. In addition, statistical analysis also indicated that the KM processes should be implemented collectively rather than separately.In conclusion, this study provided insight and further understanding of the effect of KM processes on academic performance, and therefore, allows decision-makers to get in-depth knowledge about the impact of KM processes in Iraqi HEIs context

Knowledge management and academic performance: An empirical study of Iraqi HEIs

This study examines the relationship between the processes of Knowledge Management (KM) and educational organization outcome in respect to academic performance.The study is based on a survey design and cross-sectional.The survey was conducted on 41 quality improvement-adoption colleges in Iraqi higher-education institutions (HEIs).The study hypotheses were tested through correlation and regression analyses.The results supported the main hypotheses for the study, suggesting that Iraqi HEIs can benefit from KM processes. Pearson's correlation pointed out that all processes of KM have significant correlations with academic performance measures. Regression analysis showed significantly positive relationships.In addition, statistical analysis also indicated that the KM processes should be implemented collectively rather than separately.In conclusion, this study provided insight and further understanding of the effect of KM processes on academic performance, and therefore, allows decision-makers to get in-depth knowledge about the impact of KM processes in Iraqi HEIs context

Safety in Industrial Radiography: A Short Review

Nuclear industry have increasing demand from the world because its advantages towards us. It can generate larger scale of energy using little material. However there is certain awareness to us.In 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident happen in Japan because of tsunami giving a major damage towards environment and people it is the worst incident since Chernobyl. It give a lot damage and the land unliable for decades. Then, power plants radioactive waste radiation to environment. There are few incident related to radioactive waste and it is real life threat. These materials can be harmful to environment for decades to come. Radiography is a non-destructive method used by most industry to discover the structural properties of material or to check for any defect in the material that can cause a failure in the process. The type of radiation used by the industry for radiography technique is ionizing radiation such as x-ray and gamma radiation, it is a strong radiation source. Working with such   a dangerous radiation need some decent skills and protection to avoid any radiation exposure to the worker that will result in some serious health condition. Not only it can affect the worker, if it is handled recklessly, it can degrade the quality of the final product and causing pollution to environment. Therefore, an extreme safeguarding and professionalism is required for the radiation worker. In this review, will looked for the safety guidelines to improve the safety to environment and human in nuclear industry and will be focusing on the common radiation protection and procedure that has been implemented in industrial radiograph

Examining the role of job resources on work engagement in the academic setting

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between job resources, namely autonomy, social support and performance feedback and work engagement.Data were gathered through questionnaire from a sample of academicians (n = 532) who worked in four public universities (Mu’tah University, The University of Jordan, The Hashemite University and Yarmouk University) located in the southern, middle and northern region of Jordan.Results indicate that autonomy, social support and performance feedback were a significant factor in influencing academicians work engagement.These findings generally supported past findings, which suggested that employees are more likely to engage with their work if they are given the autonomy, social support and performance feedback.The findings were discussed and implications were also put forward

Settlement reduction of dredged marine soils (DMS) admixed with cement & waste granular materials (WGM): 1-D compressibility study

Dredged marine soils (DMS) are considered as geo-waste and commonly disposed far into the sea. Environmental impacts raised from dredging such as turbidity and disturbance of marine ecosystem had increased the social demand to reuse DMS in engineering application. Typically, DMS have low shear strength and low bearing capacity. Hence, the DMS could be strengthened up by soil solidification. In present study, waste granular materials (WGM) such as coal bottom ash (BA) and palm oil clinker (POC) were utilized as additional binder to cement. The DMS were solidified with 3 series of admixtures; namely cement and/or WGM. The factor that influenced the compressibility of the soil sample such as percentages of admixtures were considered. Proportioned samples of 10, 15 and 20 % of cement, and/or 50 and 150 % of WGM of dry weight of DMS were subjected to one-dimensional oedometer test. The test samples were cured for 7 days in room temperature. Results show that cement- and WGM-admixed DMS have reduced the soil’s compressibility considerably than the untreated sample. As expected, the cemented soil had significantly reduced the settlement better than WGM-admixed soil. Hence, homogeneous samples of 15C50BA and 10C100POC produced almost similar reduction of compressibility as sample 20C. Therefore, reusing WGM as partial replacement of cement in DMS could provide beneficial reuse of these materials

Discrimination of lard in extracted ink of printed packaging of foodstuff using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and multivariate analysis

The presence of lard in extracted ink of printed-packaging of foodstuff was discriminated using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in combination with the chemometrics tool by means of multivariate analysis. The spectra for lard, commercial gravure ink, and the blends of both ranging from 0.1%-20% of lard in gravure ink were acquired and analysed to characterise the peaks of interest. The inks from plastic food packaging were extracted in a process called deinking. The resulting ink extracts were also tested on FTIR. Several spectral regions of lard, commercial gravure ink, and the blends of both were selected and subjected for the partial least square (PLS) regression calibration. The calibration revealed that the 3020-2630cm-1 region was well-suited for correlating the predicted and actual value of lard. The coefficient of determination (R2) obtained using the optimized spectral treatments was higher than 0.99, while the root mean standard error of calibration (RMSEC) value was 0.007. The score plot from the principal component analysis (PCA) of the calibration set discriminated the lard, gravure ink and the blends into their respective groups. Soft independent modelling class analogy (SIMCA) was employed as the method of discriminant analysis (DA) to classify the samples into their specific groups based on the result of PCA. The plots showed that the lard and gravure ink are well separated and located at their axis, indicated that the discriminant analysis utilised was able to classify the samples into groups based on the presence of lard. These results demonstrated that FTIR spectroscopy, when combined with multivariate analysis, can provide a rapid method with no excessive sample preparation to discriminate the presence of lard in ink of foodstuff packaging

Deterrent Factors in Urban Farming Participation

Urban farming is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around urban areas. Urban farming is a relatively new trend in Malaysia and has increased in recent years. As urban farming remains to be promoted by municipal governments and others, it is essential to understand how to ensure these projects are viable. This study was conducted to identify the deterrent factors that hinder the "community buy-in" in the urban farming projects and how to overcome the problem so that "community buy-in" in the urban farming project will be achieved and sustain in the future.Keywords: Urban Farming; Deterrent Factors; Participation; Community Buy-IneISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.206

Hydrophobic ceramic membrane for membrane distillation: A mini review on preparation, characterization, and applications

Membrane distillation (MD) is one of the emerging separation technologies with extremely high separation factor, especially in desalination application. MD utilizes the hydrophobic membrane which only allows the passage of vapor through the membrane pores. Recent years have witnessed great progress in the development of hydrophobic ceramic membranes for MD applications due to their superior properties over the polymeric counterparts. However, ceramic membranes are hydrophilic in nature; hence, membrane surface modification process is required to acquire hydrophobic properties for MD applications. Direct grafting using silane agents is the most widely used ceramic membrane hydrophobization method. Hence, this mini review provides a complete summary of the research progress on the preparation and characterization of the hydrophobic ceramic membranes through silane agent grafting, as well as their applications in MD. Finally, future research directions have also been addressed

Removal of As(III) and As(V) from water using green, silica-based ceramic hollow fibre membranes via direct contact membrane distillation

Arsenite [As(III)] and arsenate [As(V)] removal by direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) using novel hydrophobic green, silica-based ceramic hollow fibre membranes derived from agricultural rice husk was investigated in this work. The green ceramic hollow fibre membranes were prepared from amorphous (ASHFM) and crystalline (CSHFM) silica-based rice husk ash and modified to be hydrophobic via immersion fluoroalkylsilane (FAS) grafting of 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane. Superhydrophobic contact angle values up to 157° and 161° were obtained for ASHFM and CSHFM, respectively. Remarkably, the membrane surface morphology mimicked a look-alike lotus-leaf structure with decrement in pore size after grafting via the silane agent for both membranes. The effect of arsenic pH (3–11), arsenic concentration (1–1000 ppm) and feed temperature (50–80 °C) were studied and it was found that feed temperature had a significant effect on the permeate flux. The hydrophobic CSHFM, with a flux of 50.4 kg m−2 h−1 for As(III) and 51.3 kg m−2 h−1 for As(V), was found to be the best of the tested membranes. In fact, this membrane can reject arsenic to the maximum contaminant level (MCL) limit of 10 ppb under any conditions, and no swelling mechanism of the membranes was observed after testing for 4 hours

Mechanical and thermal properties of PLA/halloysite bio-nanocomposite films: effect of halloysite nanoclay concentration and addition of glycerol

The usage of biopolymers in developing biodegradable materials for applications that meet demands in society for sustainability and environmental safety has been limited due to the poor mechanical and thermal properties of biopolymers. This study aimed to improve the limited properties of biopolymers, particularly polylactic acid (PLA) films, by investigating the effect of incorporating different concentrations (0–5 wt.%) of halloysite nanoclay and by adding glycerol plasticiser on the mechanical properties (tensile strength, elongation at break, Young’s modulus, and toughness) and thermal properties (glass temperature (Tg), melting temperature (Tm), and crystalline temperature (Tc)) of the produced bio-nanocomposite films. It was found that the addition of halloysite nanoclay and glycerol improved the mechanical and thermal properties of the films. PLA films incorporated with 3 wt.% concentration of halloysite nanoclay resulted in optimum mechanical properties due to the uniform distribution or dispersion of halloysite nanoclay. The addition of halloysite nanoclay and glycerol reduced the Tg, Tm, and Tc of the films, suggesting that they can improve the processability of the biopolymer. The bio-nanocomposite films produced in this work have the potential to replace non-biodegradable films due to the improved properties of the films